Industrial democracy and corporate governance: two discourses of reform in liberal-market economies

Abstract

Industrial democracy and corporate governance are intertwined discourses. In present-day use, however, the two expressions seem to represent as different perspectives as two related discursive traditions could become. At a time when calls have emerged for the intersection of the two narratives to be revisited, how the separation of these two related discourses occurred historically and what that separation has entailed seems of particular importance. The received corporate governance approach has become so dominant that it appears to have assumed the status of an ideology - an established way of thinking about the governance of corporations that is largely just assumed (rather than argued) in much financial and legal discourse. Seeking to understand why mainstream corporate governance scholarship has failed to engage with the historically key issue of industrial democratisation is the main purpose of this paper.