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This book offers a case study that includes two Swedish housing development companies which have targeted a market niche for affordable homes that few other companies and market actors are concerned with. It provides first-hand insights into how the production of affordable homes takes place in a real-world economy.

With more than 14,000 business schools worldwide, what is included in their curricula matters for how the economy and the corporate system are managed. Business schools should be subject to scholarly inquiries and critical reflection. While many studies of business schools examine its general role in the tertiary education system and in society more broadly, this volume examines how one specific theoretical perspective and a normative model derived therefrom were developed and gradually appropriated within the business school setting. This volume demonstrates that agency theory, based on a daring conjecture that firms can be construed as bundles of contacts, rose to prominence in the business school context. It examines how the elementary proposition of agency theory, that the firm is to be considered theoretically and practically as a "nexus of contracts," was never consistent with corporate law and contract law, and it was empirically unsubstantiated. Business schools are under pressure to teach not only practically useful theories and models, but also theories that are also scientifically qualified. Despite having this ambition, certain theories are widely taught despite failing to live up to such declared ambitions, which means that business schools may be criticized for including theories on ambiguous grounds in the curricula. This book examines how business schools seek to honour the ambition to teach both scientifically verified theories and practically useful concepts and models, and how the tensions derived from this duality may be problematic to handle. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management education, organizational studies, and legal theory.

This book examines social status as a social mechanism and a social fact that strongly shapes how markets and organizations are regulated, managed, and preserved over time. The first part of this book identifies a number of organizational issues and managerial concerns that can be framed as being a matter of the cognitive perspectives of social actors, and better explained on the basis of such conditions. The second part demonstrates the analytical value of the concept of status in a variety of organizational settings and market contexts. In the three empirical settings, status does play a key role when resources such as legitimacy (in urban development projects), revenues from sales (in video game marketing), and access to venture capital (in life science companies) are distributed. This book summarizes and reviews the academic literature on status and organization studies, as well as providing valuable information for researchers conducting empirical testing. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of Organizations and Social Systems. Alexander Styhre holds the Chair of Organization and Management in the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research interests cover a wide area of research, including innovation management, urban development activities, and institutional, legal, and regulatory changes in the economic system of competitive capitalism.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Chapter 1: The Ethnographer's Dilemma: To Understand a World That Is Not Your Own While Avoiding to Misrepresenting It -- Introduction: Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Anthropologist's Predicament -- The Ethnographer's Assignment: To Unveil Everyday Practices and Their Meaning -- The Study: Methodological Issues -- Design of the Study -- The Social Science Ethnography Literature -- Technology-Based Ethnographies -- The Mode of Production: Indie Game Development and the Video Game Industry -- Data Collection -- Data Analysis -- Connecting the Ethnographic Data to Theoretical Frameworks -- Summary and Conclusion -- References -- Part I: Theoretical Perspectives -- Chapter 2: Governing Innovation-Led Economies: The Role of Business Creation and Creativity -- Introduction: Problem, Purpose, and Research Question -- Purpose and Research Question -- Innovation-Led Growth in a Finance-Led Economy -- The State of Venturing and Entrepreneurialism -- The Supply of Venture Capital -- The Creation and Operation of Private Venture Capital Markets -- Private Venture Capital Investment Performance -- Why Venture Capital Investors Commit Their Capital to High-Risk Ventures -- How Venture Capital Investors Commit Their Capital to High-Risk Ventures -- Intuition-Based Venture Capital Investment Decisions -- The Return on Equity of Venture Capital Investment: Measuring Performance -- Other Ways of Financing Development Work: On the IPO Trail -- State-Funding Redux -- Summary and Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 3: The Passionate Worker and Deeply Meaningful Work -- Introduction -- Passion and Meaning in Day-to-Day Work -- Affective Labour -- The Passion of Everyday Work -- The Authenticity Criterion in Creative Work -- Studies of Passionate Work -- On Gaming: A Sense of Being Alive.

This book contributes to the ongoing discussion around so-called precarious or venture work, as the proportion of those employed by start-ups and thinly-capitalized firms continues to grow. Filling a gap in literature, the author explores the relationship between venture co-workers and examines how they cope with economic uncertainty, moving away from the previous focus on entrepreneurs and investors. Presenting rich empirical data from several life science start-ups in Sweden, this book illustrates the impact of institutional and regulatory changes in the finance industry, and demonstrates how these effects can ultimately reshape the meaning of employment.

The legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks guiding governance decisions are highly politicized and subject to intense debate. This book discusses governance theory in relation to corporations, universities and markets. Confronting the challenges of governing these three core areas, Alexander Styhre explores the connections between governance and the production of economic value, shareholder value and economic equality. An in-depth overview of recent governance literature in management studies, economics, legal theory and economic sociology exposes how governance theory affects securities markets, commodities trade, university ranking and credit scoring cases. The author examines how changes in competitive capitalism and the wider social organization of society are recursively both determined by, and actively shaping, the underlying governance ideals and practices. Identifying the difficulties involved in balancing freedom and control in governance policy, he highlights the key concerns confronting governments, regulatory agencies and transnational agencies: how to ensure the efficient use of economic resources to avoid economic inequality without undermining the legitimacy of the current market-based economic model. Essential reading for academics and graduates in management and the social sciences, as well as policy makers and management consultants, The Unfinished Business of Governance gives exceptional insight into the challenges facing governance within free markets

Introduction -- The 1950s' antitrust legislation and enforcement critique and its response -- 1960s and the market for management control argument -- 1970s: the contractual theory of the firm -- 1980s: agency theory and the shareholder welfare norm -- Finance market de-regulation and the decline of New Deal policy: Clinton era free market reforms -- The new millennium: volatility, crises, and austerity

This book examines the new conditions under which professional work, often referred to as "knowledge-intensive work," is organised and how professional groups who have traditionally been granted jurisdictional discretion now have their work routines renegotiated. In the new economic regime of what has been called "investor capitalism" and under the influence of shareholder primacy governance, professional work is put under pressure to change. The author explores issues of increased financial and economic volatility, the pressure to outsource and offshore professional work and the increased supply of competitors with tertiary education degrees in the labour market. Examining both macroeconomic conditions and policy that inform and shape the domain of professional work, the book emphasises how the nature of professional work has changed since the 1980s and 1990s and argues that it is no longer a "safe haven" for a favoured group of elite workers. Precarious Professional Work underlines how the study of professions must constantly accommodate new economic conditions and managerial practices to better understand how professional work is dependent on and entangled with external social, economic, and political conditions.

"The life sciences are widely treated as a field and an industry with high-growth potential, and while neoclassical economic theory prescribes that capital are invested in emerging industries, there is a perceived shortage of venture capital among life science entrepreneurs. Financing Life Science Innovation reviews the literature on venture capital, corporate governance, and life science venturing and presents a study of the Swedish life science industry and the venture capital investors being active in financially and managerially supporting life science start-up firms. The study reveals that venture capital investors, life science entrepreneurs, and innovation system actors today face the challenge of supplying adequate amounts of capital to an industry that may produce tomorrow's health care innovations. Changes in scientific research practices, the structure of the international finance market, and industry policy are all contributing to what is frequently treated as a shortage of venture capital in the life sciences"--