The purpose of business is a much contested issue. In this paper, I offer a review of the historical development of the role of business in society and examine the general arguments for different perspectives. From an Aristotelian to a Smithian view of the role of business to the more recent...

Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. Based on Paul Lawrence's work, I examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model...

10.2 trillion dollars have been lost in the US alone in the past two years. 45% of world’s wealth has been destroyed and three of the largest bankruptcies in the US have occurred in the past year. Just as the majority of observers thought lessons from Enron had been learned, crisis has struck...

While the idea of freedom lies at the heart of our economic system, academic research has neglected to connect theories of the firm to freedom theory. To fill this void, the authors delineate two archetypes of freedom – quantitative and qualitative – and outline the consequences of the...

Social Comparisons are ubiquitous phenomenon, for some researchers the key to evolutionary survival, for others key to understanding depression. Anybody engaged in artistic endeavors understands the relevance comparisons play throughout the creative process. In this article we examine the...

Contrary to the assumption that vision worsens over time, the current experiments show that vision be improved by manipulating mindsets. Experiment 1 primed the mindset that pilots have excellent vision. Vision improved for participants who experientially became pilots through instructions and...

Ageism has resulted in overstated expectations regarding the inevitable deterioration in human capabilities, such as visual perception, with age (Rowe & Kahn, 1987; Grant, 1996). Human visual perception, however, is of a largely constructive nature, evidenced in the complementary interactions...

Using an information processing perspective we identify two reasons why boards failed to manage risk well 1) board members did not get relevant information about risks incurred by management because they lacked control over information supply; 2) board members were not able to process such...

The financial crisis of 2008/09 has many roots and remedies will have to be multipronged. However, there seems no doubt that corporate governance mechanisms failed with regard to risk management across the board. In this presentation, we show the systemic shortcomings of a unitary board which...

This paper 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...