Social governance: Corporate governance in institutions of social security, welfare and healthcare

Abstract

Corporate governance is a concept that attracted the attention of jurists and economists in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. It has become widespread in Belgian company law since the 1990s. Lately, corporate governance elements have popped up in other fields as well. When applied to social institutions, this model is referred to by the term “social governance”. The corporate governance concept can be very valuable in the social area. After all, the debate on corporate governance is much more fundamental than the debate on the relationship between shareholders and management and between minority and majority shareholders. The essence of corporate governance can be found in the pursuit of a situation of “checks and balances”, which gives the stakeholders the possibility of complementing and controlling each other. We analyse the existing social governance elements in social security and welfare law. We conclude that the implementation of a social governance model should have a positive influence on the policy and practice of social institutions.