Welcome to City University London's Critical Corporation Project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
In the contemporary academy, the nature of the transnational corporation and its role in the global political economy is analysed from various different disciplinary perspectives.
The aim of this project is to bring together the expertise and insights of scholars in critical legal studies, critical management studies, heterodox economy, political science, critical anthropology and sociology/criminology and beyond to uncover the undoubtedly significant synergies that can be gained from a collaborative critical analysis of the corporation.
Such analysis will lead to new perspectives on, for example, the nature and uses of corporate power on the global level, the nature of the corporation as a social unit constituted of individual citizens of various nationalities, cultures and classes.
It will lead to new perspectives on the effect of the corporate (legal/organisational) form and transnational regulation of corporate matters on individual behaviour, the transnational corporation, global governance, private authority and global class society.
The project covers analysing the transnational corporation as an actor in the global political economy and the global economic crises, and the challenges of regulating or governing transnational corporate groups - between global communal, global class and local worker and/or victims' interests.
The analysis benefits from the group members' individual set of subject-specific expertise and methodology, while maintaining coherence through the common use of poststructuralist, Marxist and related critical theoretical frames.
The Project is convened by Grietje Baars of The City Law School and Andre Spicer of the Business School and runs an ESRC-funded series of seminars and public events. "The Corporation: A Critical, Multidisciplinary Handbook" will be published with Cambridge University Press in 2015.
Publications
The Corporate Reform Collective's new book Fighting Corporate Abuse demonstrates, though compelling and revelatory analysis, the legislation and regulation needed to deal with the abuses in the corporate sector that have been revealed in recent years.
It highlights the more general contribution of company law and practice to the current crisis in capitalism.
The first section develops a controversial argument, using detailed illustrations and vivid examples which show how the various abuses of predatory capitalism have been carried out through the manipulation of the corporate form and the creation of highly complex corporate groups.
In the run up to the UK general election, the authors develop of a set of practical proposals for an incoming government, outlining how each of these abuses could be curtailed and how a more acceptable and accountable form of corporate capitalism can be developed through national and international action.
Related publications
- Chandler, A.D. & Mazlish, B., Leviathans: Multinational corporations and the new global history, Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Corporate Reform Collective, Fighting Corporate Abuse Beyond Predatory Capitalism, Pluto Press, 2014
- Crouch, C., The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism, Polity Press, 2011
- Davis, G.F., Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America, Oxford University Press, 2009
- Epstein, G.A. (ed), Financialization and the world economy, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005
- Fleming, P. and M. Jones: The End of CSR, Sage, 2012
- Glasbeek, H., Wealth by Stealth: Corporate Crime, Corporate Law, and the Perversion of Democracy, Between the Lines, 2002
- Harris, R. Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720 - 1844, Cambridge University Press, 2000
- McQueen, R., A Social History of Company Law: Great Britain and the Australian Colonies 1854-1920, Ashgate, 2009
- Michalowski, R. and Kramer, R., State-Corporate Crime: Wrongdoing at the Intersection of Business And Government, Rutgers University Press, 2006
- Muchlinski, P., Multinational Enterprises and the Law, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Picciotto, S., Regulating Global Corporate Capitalism, Cambridge University Press, 2011
- Pontell, H and Geis, G (eds.), International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, Dordrecht, 2007
- Soederberg, S., Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism: The Politics of Resistance and Domination, Routledge, 2010
- Taylor, J., Creating Capitalism: Joint-Stock Enterprise in British Politics and Culture, 1800-1870, Boydell Press, 2006
- Thompson, G., The Constitutionalization of the Global Corporate Sphere, Oxford University Press, 2012
- Tinker, T., Social Accounting for Corporations: Private Enterprise versus the Accounting Interest, Manchester University Press, 1984
- Zey, M., Rational choice theory and organizational theory: a critique, Sage Publications, 1998.
Members
- Grietje Baars
- Jennifer Bair
- Bobby Banerjee
- Pepijn Brandon
- Dan Danielsen
- William Davies
- Jerry Davis
- Simon F Deakin
- Naná de Graaff
- Mahmoud Ezzamel
- James Faulconbridge
- Peter Fleming
- Robert J. Foster
- Luc Fransen
- Julie Froud
- Jason Glynos
- David Hansen-Miller
- Laura Horn
- Paddy Ireland
- Andrew Jones
- Suntae Kim
- William Lazonick
- David Levy
- Sorcha MacLeod
- Glenn Morgan
- Anastasia Nesvetailova
- Goldie Osuri
- Ronen Palan
- Martin Parker
- Inderjeet Parmar
- Jean-Pascal Gond
- Frank Pearce
- Sol Picciotto
- Andrew Sanchez
- Marc Schneiberg
- Susanne Soederberg
- Professor André Spicer
- Philip Stern
- Steve Tombs
- Bastiaan van Apeldoorn
- Harmen van der Wilt
- Marina Welker
- David Whyte
- Hugh Willmott
- Koji Yamamoto.
