Corporate Power and Responsible Capitalism?: Towards Social Accountability

'Major scandals, disasters and crises have turned shareholder capitalism, so recently trumpeted as among contemporary society's most successful achievements, into one of its most worrying problem children. In this highly readable account Bryn Jones rehearses in detail the negative consequences of the growing economic and political power of the modern corporation. He then reviews a wide range of alternative ways of organizing a market economy, examples of which are found in a variety of modern economies.'
- Colin Crouch, University of Warwick Business School, UK and Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany

Can business corporations be made more responsible for their actions? Abuses of corporate power, its responsibilities and scandals, pervade political, academic and public debates. In this important book, Bryn Jones locates the sources of this 'corporate over-reach' in key features of the share-traded corporations which dominate global economies and national societies. Focussing on the disembedding of businesses from their social roots, he assesses alternative types of business system and prospects for shifting from 'social responsibility' to social accountability.

Split into three parts, this book brings together a multitude of ideas and evidence from different fields to address: context and history, the social embedding and disembedding of business systems, and the pursuit and pitfalls of responsible capitalism. It concludes by recommending potential models for reform in the UK.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students in politics, sociology, public policy and management programs will find this book both accessible and useful for its summaries of diverse literatures on business-society relations. The points of discussion will also be valuable for media commentators on business and politics, policy makers in the areas of business-society relations and campaigners and political activists.