Ownership, agency, and trusteeship: an assessment

Abstract

This article argues that the two dominant concepts of theory of the firm and the bases of modern management education, business practice, and public policy towards the firm, namely shareholder primacy and agency theory, are at best incomplete and at worst erroneous. They omit what was a substantial basis of discourse on the company in the first half of the nineteenth century, namely the notion of trusteeship. The article argues that reintroducing trusteeship addresses many of the current debates around capital…