•  35
    Toward a More Humanistic Governance Model: Network Governance Structures (review)
    with Michael Pirson
    Journal of Business Ethics 99 (1). 2011.
    This conceptual article suggests a reexamination of current governance structures, specifically those of unitary boards after the financial crisis of 2008.We suggest that the existing governance structures are based on an outdated paradigm of business, rooted in economics. We propose an alternative paradigm, a more humanistic paradigm, which allows conceiving alternative, network-oriented governance structures. As hierarchical firms grow larger and more complex, the risk of failure increases fro…Read more
  •  21
    Decentralized Governance Structures Are Able to Handle CSR-Induced Complexity Better
    with Michael Pirson
    Business and Society 57 (5): 929-961. 2018.
    This article explores how both corporate governance and corporate social responsibility can be improved by using insights from complexity theory. Complexity theory reveals that decentralized governance architecture is required for firms to absorb competently the increased intricacies, variety of variables, and objectives introduced by CSR. The current predominant form of centralized governance based on command-and-control hierarchies copes with complexities by reducing data inputs. This approach…Read more
  •  6
    Grounding a Theory of Firms in the Natural Sciences
    Humanistic Management Journal 1 (2): 159-186. 2017.
    This paper grounds the theory of any type of firm in the science of control and communication described as cybernetics. It is also grounded in the physiological and neurological limitations of humans to receive, store, process and act upon data to coordinate their activities. To overcome limitations in the market failure theory of the firm identified by leading scholars, Transaction Byte Analysis is introduced. TBA is based on economising bytes rather than costs and is applicable to all types of…Read more
  •  4
    Directors of corporations governed by a single board (i) Have excessive and unethical powers to become "Sources of risk" and (ii) Lack processes to systematically obtain information independently of management on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of either their managers or the business to be "Managers of Risk". The removal and/or mediation of unethical conflicts can be achieved by amending corporate constitutions to separate governance powers from the power to manage b…Read more