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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Anna Tilba
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
Understanding 21st century finance in is an urgent task for academics, practitioners and policymakers alike. More often than not, the research agendas and debates have been established and taken forward by scholars within the silos of their own academic fields. This chapter highlights the need to re-appraise some of the terminology and methodology we use in relation to charting the evolution of British business and stimulate a more interdisciplinary dialogue between business history and other disciplines. The chapter begins with an account of the evolution of UK ownership and corporate control starting from the middle of 19th century to the present day. The emergence of a new class of institutional investor-owners such as pension funds, insurance companies, endowment funds and other asset managers is noted, alongside their increasing significance within academic and policy debates. Turning from the historical to the contemporary, the chapter elaborates on the development of corporate governance codes, which place more emphasis on greater accountability and stewardship both inside and outside the corporate boardroom. Using examples from corporate governance research, the chapter proceeds with a selective overview of the mixed evidence of institutional investor stewardship, but at the same time a lack of voice and influence over the strategic decisions senior managers make. The apparent lack of investor engagement and ‘control’ undermines the extensive use of labels such as ‘Financial Capitalism’ or ‘The New Financial Capitalism’ within the academic literature and popular press. The concluding sections of this chapter cautions against an oversimplified use of such terms and call for a more contextualised view of ownership where intellectual conversations would attend to both historic contexts, as well as theoretical and practical implications.
Author(s): Tilba A
Editor(s): Wilson, JF; Toms, S; de Jong, A; Buchnea, E
Publication type: Book Chapter
Publication status: Published
Book Title: The Routledge Companion to Business History
Year: 2017
Pages: 300-316
Print publication date: 12/12/2016
Acceptance date: 01/01/1900
Edition: 1
Series Title: Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Accounting
Number of Volumes: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Place Published: Abington, Oxon
URL: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Business-History/Wilson-Toms-de-Jong-Buchnea/p/book/9780415855563
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9780415855563
