In September 2015, the crowdfunding site Kickstarter announced that it would adopt a new corporate form, that of a benefit corporation. Kickstarter is far from alone in this decision; in fact, it joined a growing list of tech firms that are moving toward adopting a benefit corporation designation. The result of the legal movement is that corporate governance across the nation may be changing, impacting everything from business ethics training to board decision making, with potentially wide‐ranging implications for the economy, environment, and civil society. Despite its growing popularity, though, the rationale behind the emergence of benefit corporations is an understudied question. In this article, we argue that benefit incorporation affects the very nature of the corporation by creating corporate common pool resources (CPRs) and that the CPR theory provides a way to understand the puzzle and future of the movement. This approach is important because it resituates the conversation, from a narrow view of the effect of the legislation on traditional corporate concepts to a broader view of the impact of the legislation. Furthermore, we consider the benefit corporation through the lens of Professor Elinor Ostrom's design principles, offering a unique perspective through which to analyze if the designs of state statutes and implementation by business entities meet criteria that would predict successful governance of the benefit corporation CPR.

中文翻译：

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企业和公共资源池理论：了解利益公司的兴起

2015年9月，众筹网站Kickstarter宣布将采用一种新的公司形式，即福利公司。在这个决定中，Kickstarter并不孤单。实际上，它加入了越来越多的采用福利公司名称的科技公司名单。法律运动的结果是，全国范围内的公司治理可能正在发生变化，影响到从商业道德培训到董事会决策的所有方面，并对经济，环境和公民社会产生潜在的广泛影响。尽管它越来越受欢迎，但是，福利公司的兴起背后的原理是一个未被充分研究的问题。在这篇文章中，我们认为，利益合并会通过创建公司公共资源库（CPR）来影响公司的本质，而CPR理论提供了一种理解运动的难题和未来的方法。这种方法之所以重要，是因为它使对话重新定位，从对传统公司概念的立法影响的狭义观点到对立法影响的广义观点。此外，我们通过埃里诺·奥斯特罗姆（Elinor Ostrom）教授的设计原则来考虑福利公司，从而提供了一个独特的视角，可以用来分析国家法规的设计和企业实体的实施是否符合可以预测福利公司CPR成功治理的标准。这种方法之所以重要，是因为它使对话重新定位，从对传统公司概念的立法影响的狭义观点到对立法影响的广义观点。此外，我们通过埃里诺·奥斯特罗姆（Elinor Ostrom）教授的设计原则来考虑福利公司，并提供了一个独特的视角来分析国家法规的设计和企业实体的实施是否符合可以预测福利公司CPR成功治理的标准。这种方法之所以重要，是因为它使对话重新定位，从对传统公司概念的立法影响的狭义观点到对立法影响的广义观点。此外，我们通过埃里诺·奥斯特罗姆（Elinor Ostrom）教授的设计原则来考虑福利公司，并提供了一个独特的视角来分析国家法规的设计和企业实体的实施是否符合可以预测福利公司CPR成功治理的标准。