What is business for? Day one of a business course will tell you: it
is to maximise shareholder profit. This single idea pervades all our
thinking and teaching about business around the world but it is
fundamentally wrong, Colin Mayer argues. It has had disastrous and
damaging consequences for our economies, environment, politics, and
societies.
In this urgent call for reform, Prosperity challenges the fundamentals
of business thinking. It sets out a comprehensive new agenda for
establishing the corporation as a unique and powerful force for
promoting economic and social wellbeing in its fullest sense - for
customers and communities, today and in the future.
First Professor and former Dean of the Säid Business School in Oxford,
Mayer is a leading figure in the global discussion about the purpose and
role of the corporation. In Prosperity, he presents a radical and
carefully considered prescription for corporations, their ownership,
governance, finance, and regulation. Drawing together insights from
business, law, economics, science, philosophy, and history, he shows how
the corporation can realize its full potential to contribute to economic
and social wellbeing of the many, not just the few.
Prosperity tells us not only how to create and run successful
businesses but also how policy can get us there and fix our broken
system.
