Explore the vast range of titles available.

The issue of firm ownership is an ongoing debate. For several decades, contractarian theory has undoubtedly shaped the academic debate in both law and economics. Proponents of this approach suggest that shareholders can legitimately be considered the owners of a firm because they hold shares. This approach, though attractive, is legally incorrect. Legal scholars have noted that a corporation cannot legally belong to shareholders or other stakeholders; no one owns the firm (and a corporation). The question of firm ownership masks the following crucial issue: Who should govern the firm? In this article, after returning to the theoretical debate on firm ownership and explaining why a firm cannot be owned, we shall analyze power as the core of firm governance. This approach is a potentially relevant and accurate way to address the problems of specific human investment, collective creation and productive (consummate) cooperation in modern firms.

Depuis le XIX e siècle, la question de faire participer les salariés se pose comme une problématique centrale dans la conduite de toute entreprise : grands groupes comme PME, entreprises publiques comme privées. Cette thématique est potentiellement polémique, certains y voyant une nouvelle façon déguisée d’exploiter les travailleurs au bénéfice des managers et des dirigeants. Cependant, arriver à faire participer les salariés au bien collectif que représente l’organisation est au moins autant un impératif de survie économique qu’une nécessité managériale. Face au risque d’une instrumentalisation potentielle de la participation des salariés à des fins partisanes, il est de plus en plus nécessaire de définir et de proposer un cadrage théorique qui permette d’appréhender ce que participer signifie réellement et ce que cela implique pour les salariés, pour les dirigeants et pour l’organisation. Après avoir précisément défini ce que nous entendons par participation, nous suggérons l’idée que, pour être pleinement réalisée, cette notion implique que soit mis en œuvre un idéal politique d’autogouvernement. C’est là en effet, selon nous, la condition essentielle pour envisager un véritable « pouvoir agir » des individus et des collectifs sur les processus de leur propre émancipation. Participation in the world of work: Self-governmentSince the 19th century, the question of how employees can participate arises as a central issue in business life as in the literature. This question is crucial for both small organizations and major groups, public and private. Nevertheless, this topic can appear as controversial or explosive, some seeing it as a new instrumentalization or even an extension of people’s exploitation that primarily benefits the CEOs and managers. Given the risk of a potential instrumentalization of participation, it is increasingly necessary to suggest a theoretical framework to clearly understand what participate really means and implies for the employees, managers and the whole organization. After defined what we mean by participation, we suggest that this concept entails, to be fully realized, to implement a self-government framework. In this sense, our approach to work participation is an ideal of self-government that initiates a debate on the conditions of a real “empowerment”, meaning a real “power to act” for people and groups in the process of their own emancipation.