The recipe for a mutual success
Mutuality seems to be dying as Equitable and Bradford and Bingley relinquish it and the water regulator rejects Kelda's proposition. Perhaps not surprisingly - mutuals suffer from the problems of too little capital - or too much. Is there a possibility of a sustainable constitution for a mutual business?
Blurring of responsibility
You can be responsible to people to whom you are not accountable; and you can deal with interlocking and conflicting responsibilities. Why do so many thoughtful people fail to realise this?
Ticket touts
As All England Club strives once more to foil ticket touts, the professional economist views the idea of the “just price” with patronising and detached amusement. But is he right?
The fate of Project Tiny Tim
This case was prepared by Professor John Kay, under the direction of emeritus Professor Charles Dickens. It is intended as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.
The oblique approach
With maturity – personal or corporate – comes the principle of obliquity. Many people have noted the paradox that the most profitable companies are not necessarily the most profit oriented.
The Third Way
Is the third way simply an eclectic compromise which offers to drop any unpalatable bits from the familiar ideologies of far right and far left? I argue that if there is a third way, this is not where we will find it.
The Role of Business in Society
The view of business as necessarily selfish, narrow and instrumental, is, as it always has been, nonsense. Business which is selfish in motivation, narrow in outlook, and instrumental in behaviour is rarely successful business.
A Stakeholding Society – What Does it Mean for Business?
There is a clear distinction between businesses whose characteristic is to develop a professional service in order to serve all its stakeholders and businesses whose focus is mainly to maximise shareholder return. Which is likely to be more successful?
Called to account
What are the responsibilities of Shell to society at large? There is a simple answer - and it’s wrong.
A cowboy culture
How are we to deal with businessmen who won’t play fair? There are three responses, and the one most under-rated is to regulate by a system of values.