From the shareholder firm to the participative firm

Abstract

This article aims above any other goal to summarise the main economic reasons that support that participative corporate governance of big companies is not only possible but more efficient, fairer and more sustainable than the current prevailing conventional model, based on shareholders primacy. In this sense, after briefly reviewing the basic characteristics of the shareholding model and the main reasons used by the academic orthodoxy to justify its economic supremacy, the article highlights the principal issues hold against them by a diverse theoretical trend increasingly broader. Issues pointing towards the desirability and viability of a kind of corporate governance characterised by significant participation of the essential stakeholders to the corporate activity. A model such as this is preferable as well in microeconomic, moral and juridical terms as in terms of efficiency, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Such a model would allow moving forward towards a greater democracy both in business and in society as a whole.