Capitalism and Management Research: The Worst of Times, The Best of Times

This review essay proposes an examination of recent management research contributions to the debate of the role of corporations in capitalist economies, focusing on (but not limited to) the recent books by Paul Adler (2019), Rebecca Henderson (2020), Sarah Kaplan (2019), and Subramanian Rangan (2018). These works identify common criticisms of capitalist systems related to an excessive corporate emphasis on economic value (i.e., shareholder primacy), their neglect of societal externalities, and their tendency toward increasing market concentration. They also eschew simplistic arguments based on the notion that companies can “do well by doing good,” which fail to recognize important trade-offs in decisions involving multiple stakeholder interests. The books, however, diverge in their solutions, ranging from suggestions to tackle these trade-offs with the incorporation of stakeholder interests to more profound changes in the structure of economic exchange. Building on the insights of these books and identifying some missing issues, I then suggest four avenues for future research: (a) the analysis of pro-social shareholder preferences, (b) a thorough analysis of comparative organizational forms, (c) the detailed assessment of the costs of organization, and (d) the reconceptualization of the notion of value creation toward a higher emphasis on social justice.