ABSTRACT
The relationship between owners and managers-i.e., the question of corporate governance and control-has been a central concern of organization and management theory for many decades (Berle and Means 1932; Djelic 2013; Fiss 2008). Lex Donaldson’s work (e.g., J. Davis, Schoorman, and Donaldson 1997; Donaldson and Davis 1991) on stewardship theory in the 1990s sparked an important and vibrant debate that continues to unfold today. Should management be governed by the principles of agency theory, which at its core assumes that the interests of managers, and those of the firm and its owners (and maybe society at large), are misaligned? Or should management be based on stewardship theory’s central proposition that these interests are (or can be) intrinsically aligned? These questions reflect a key concern not only of scholars of organization and management but also of contemporary societies more broadly, as corporations increasingly wield power and influence over a broad range of societal domains (Perrow 1991).
