Author: Colin Mayer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Comments: *Colin Mayer, former dean of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, is critical of companies who chose dispersed ownership rather than a more long-term oriented ownership structure such as family ownership for example. Thus Mars of the US is still family owned in contrast to its rival the UK Cadbury, whose founding Quaker owners floated the company and finally gave it up to Kraft of the US in 2010. However, structure alone does not guarantee stability, accountability or social purpose.

His real target is what he calls the shift to a dangerous monoculture of business in the 1990s and 2000s. This has led to a number different corporate models such as employee ownership, mutual and family companies being overshadowed by an increasingly self-interested listed company model. He is not pessimistic and indeed believes that capitalism has a bright future. However, he warns we stand “on the border between creation and cataclysm”, especially since the last decade of regulation has barely improved the flawed corporate model. We need to divert our path  towards “the age of the trusted corporation”.*