scholarly journals Sustainable Value Creation Within Planetary Boundaries—Reforming Corporate Purpose and Duties of the Corporate Board

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6245
Author(s):  
Beate Sjåfjell
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Corporate Board ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
Shareholder Primacy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sustainable Value ◽  
The Eu

Business, and the dominant legal form of business, that is, the corporation, must be involved in the transition to sustainability, if we are to succeed in securing a safe and just space for humanity. The corporate board has a crucial role in determining the strategy and the direction of the corporation. However, currently, the function of the corporate board is constrained through the social norm of shareholder primacy, reinforced through the intermediary structures of capital markets. This article argues that an EU law reform is key to integrating sustainability into mainstream corporate governance, into the corporate purpose and the core duties of the corporate board, to change corporations from within. While previous attempts at harmonizing core corporate law at the EU level have failed, there are now several drivers for reform that may facilitate a change, including the EU Commission’s increased emphasis on sustainability. Drawing on this momentum, this article presents a proposal to reform corporate purpose and duties of the board, based on the results of the EU-funded research project, Sustainable Market Actors for Responsible Trade (SMART, 2016–2020).

scholarly journals Beyond Climate Risk: Integrating Sustainability into the Duties of the Corporate Board

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 41-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Sjåfjell
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Corporate Board ◽  
Sustainable Business ◽  
Shareholder Primacy ◽  
Major Barrier ◽  
Business Form ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

Finding out how business can be a part of the shift to sustainability has never been more crucial. This article starts out by presenting the results of a multi-jurisdictional comparative analysis of corporate law, seeking to investigate the barriers, to and possibilities for, sustainable business in the dominant business form — the corporation. The social norm of shareholder primacy is identified as a major barrier to sustainability. Shareholder primacy has taken over the space that corporate law leaves open for the discretion of the individual corporate board.

Social Investment as a Policy Platform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Vandenbroucke
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Education Spending ◽  
Overlapping Consensus ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
Broad Consensus ◽  
The Eu

This contribution argues for a truly reciprocal social investment pact for Europe: member states should be committed to policies that respond to the need for social investment; simultaneously, member states’ efforts in this direction—notably efforts by those in a difficult budgetary context—should be supported in a tangible way. Social investment is a policy perspective that should be based on a broad consensus between people who may entertain certain disagreements regarding the level of their empirical and/or normative understanding of the social world. For that reason, the expression of an ‘overlapping consensus’ is used for delineating social investment advocacy. Data on education spending show that we are far removed from a social investment perspective at the European Union (EU) level. This underscores the fact that social investment advocates need to clearly consider the role the EU has to play in social investment progress.

Can Humanism be the Social Norm?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon D. Welch
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Social Norm ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
The Social

Assaults on truth and divisions about the nature of wise governance are not momentary political challenges, unique to particular moments in history. Rather, they demonstrate fundamental weaknesses in human reasoning and core dangers in ways of construing both individual freedom and cohesive communities. It will remain an ongoing challenge to learn to deal rationally with what is an intrinsic irrationality in human cognition and with what is an intrinsic tendency toward domination and violence in human collectivities. In times of intense social divisions, it is vital to consider the ways in which humanism might function as the social norm by, paradoxically, functioning in a way different from other social norms. Humanism is not the declaration that a certain set of values or norms are universally valid. At its best and most creative, humanism is not limited to a particular set of norms, but is, rather, the commitment to a certain process in which norms are continuously created, critically evaluated, implemented, sustained or revised. Humanism is a process of connection, perception, implementation, and critique, and it applies this process as much to itself as to other traditions.

Between entrepreneurs and workers: Cleavages and compromises in rationales and policy solutions regarding ‘dependent contractors’

2021 ◽  
pp. 0143831X2110303
Author(s):  
Louis Florin ◽  
François Pichault
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Narrative Policy Framework ◽  
Policy Solutions ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Labour Regulation

The emergence of dependent contractors challenges the existing institutions regarding social protection and labour regulation. This article aims at identifying the political narratives that explain the emergence of New Forms of Employment (NFE) and dependent contracting along with the policy solutions proposed by the social partners at the EU and international level. By analysing policy documents from the social partners through the lens of a qualitative version of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), the authors indentify two distinct narratives – ‘devaluation of work’ and ‘entrepreneurship and flexibility’. The authors show how these rationales lead to various policy solutions and identify oppositions and possible compromise.

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