We develop a stakeholder theory of corporate governance grounded in classical property rights theory, adopting the view that governance should help free individuals to maximize their collective welfare. In contrast to the agency view of corporate governance, we submit that the central problem in corporate governance is to devise coalitional contracting solutions to the collective action problems inherent in team production and team innovation. Agency problems and other contracting problems resulting from shirking, hold-up, market power, and externalities are best understood in this context. We develop design principles for the allocation of property rights to mitigate each of these contracting problems by reducing stakeholders’ vulnerabilities to opportunistic behaviors. We extend earlier efforts to build a stakeholder theory of corporate governance by considering a more comprehensive set of transactions problems and analyzing the comparative efficiency of different governance arrangements for different types of firm-stakeholder relationships and different economic contexts. One conclusion from our theory is that giving primacy to shareholders, or any other group of stakeholders, is a comparatively inefficient solution to governing the modern global and knowledge-driven corporation. We discuss the implications of our theorizing for the debate about the purpose of the firm.

中文翻译：

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超越首要：公司治理的利益相关者理论

我们发展了一种基于经典产权理论的公司治理利益相关者理论，认为治理应该帮助个人自由以最大化他们的集体福利。与公司治理的代理观点相反，我们认为公司治理的核心问题是为团队生产和团队创新中固有的集体行动问题设计联合契约解决方案。由推卸责任、垄断、市场力量和外部性导致的代理问题和其他合同问题在这种情况下得到了最好的理解。我们制定了产权分配的设计原则，通过减少利益相关者对机会主义行为的脆弱性来缓解这些合同问题。我们通过考虑更全面的交易问题并分析不同治理安排在不同类型的公司-利益相关者关系和不同经济背景下的比较效率，扩展了早期建立公司治理利益相关者理论的努力。我们的理论得出的一个结论是，赋予股东或任何其他利益相关者群体至高无上的地位，对于治理现代全球和知识驱动的公司来说是一种相对低效的解决方案。我们讨论了我们的理论化对关于公司目的的辩论的影响。我们的理论得出的一个结论是，赋予股东或任何其他利益相关者群体至高无上的地位，对于治理现代全球和知识驱动的公司来说是一种相对低效的解决方案。我们讨论了我们的理论化对关于公司目的的辩论的影响。我们的理论得出的一个结论是，赋予股东或任何其他利益相关者群体至高无上的地位，对于治理现代全球和知识驱动的公司来说是一种相对低效的解决方案。我们讨论了我们的理论化对关于公司目的的辩论的影响。