ABSTRACT
Since 1971 Indigenous Peoples in Alaska have been experimenting with a unique corporate form, the Alaska Native Corporation, or ANC. As 21st century corporate governance reformers look for alternatives to shareholder primacy, ANCs and their underlying autochthonous legal principles offer a solution to reimagine both shares and shareholders in ways that directly involve stakeholders in governance decisions. Traditional Indigenous principles do not separate labour from capital, and so when Indigenous People in Alaska were forced by the United States federal government to create corporations in order to manage their land and resources, they reimagined the fundamental nature of a corporation according to their own Indigenous traditions. The result is a form of corporate entity whose structure provides a model to traditional corporations and suggests a way forward for corporate governance reform. Modern corporations should learn from the innovations adopted by ANCs in order to make themselves both more sustainable and more responsive to the communities they serve.
