ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the alternative conceptions of the company and how they might usefully interact with company law in the future. The power of companies is exercised in another layer of unreality and of mere words: in our company law, in the accountancy jargon, and in the financial prospectuses that lure in investors. The chapter presents the straightforward company law analysis of the shareholder as being the only possible owner of the company's property and the only person entitled to share in its profits. As a result, companies in this jurisdiction were prevented from developing other dimensions that would require them as part of company law to operate best practice in their corporate governance and to take into accounts the wishes and needs of employees within the company. The chapter considers some of the alternative conceptions of the company and how they might usefully interact with company law in the future.
