Imagining Alternatives: Corporate Governance and Workers' Voice
May 23–24, 2019
Corporate governance and workers’ voice are core issues to current debates about the future of the firm, its nature and purpose. Since the nineteenth century, theories and practices of corporate governance evolved with changing modes of worker integration into the firm, from Taylorism to financial management through toyotism. It is therefore crucial that these theories and practices be placed in their historical context and that we question the specific categories which underlie them. The workshop will address the role of economic, political and scientific actors in the production of theories and concepts of corporate governance as well as examining the operationalization of such concepts in legal systems and corporate practices. Special attention will also be given to their reinvention through experimentation with new forms of governance and participation.
The speakers have been invited to discuss these issues in relation to four main questions:
-Which actors are associated with past and current discussions about the forms of governance and employee participation? In which arenas do these debates take place? What are the issues at stake?
-Which categories are core to these debates in different national contexts? Does it make a difference to speak of voice, employee/worker participation, Beteiligung or Mitbestimmung? About corporate governance or gouvernement de l’entreprise? How did these categories emerge and in which disciplinary/historical contexts are they anchored?
-What visions of the firm’s future are underlying these debates?
-To what extent is the emergence of different models of participation and governance linked to national, local or global settings with respect to democracy and labor relations?
Convener
Participants
David
Ciepley
University of Denver, Institute for Advanced Study, CEU Budapest
Laure
De Verdalle
Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
Sasha
Disko
Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin
Olivier
Favereau
Université Paris-Nanterre & Collège des Bernardins
Roberto
Frega
Centre Marc Bloch, CNRS, Berlin
Anke
Hassel
Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut der Hans Böckler Stiftung, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Lisa
Herzog
Fellow
2017/2018
Hochschule für Politik München an der Technischen Universität München
Samuel
Jubé
Institut d'Études Avancées de Nantes
Bruce
Kogut
Fellow
2012/2013
Columbia Business School, New York
Sara
Lafuente Hernández
European Trade Union Institute
Michel
Lallement
Centre national des Arts et Métiers, Paris
Constance
Perrin-Joly
Centre francais d'ètudes éthiopiennes, Addis Abeba
Marcel
van der Linden
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Andreas
Eckert
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Léa
Renard
Centre Marc Bloch / Universität Potsdam
Fabrizio
Dell'Acqua
Columbia Business School
Jürgen
Kocka
Former Permanent Fellow
Freie Universität Berlin