Studia Prawa Prywatnego

nr 1/2024

Growth or development, welfare or well-being? Reflections on the notion of a company’s interest in light of the assumptions of institutional economics

DOI: 10.32027/SPP.24.1.2

Justyna Dąbrowska

PhD, Department of Business Law and Digital Economy, Faculty of Law and Administration, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.

Abstrakt

The article questions the existing concept of a company’s interest, asking whether it is still appropriate, given the changes that have taken place in the institutional setting of corporations. Today, there is no doubt that sustainable development (also as a legal obligation) requires ‘an integrated approach’, meaning that company law should address environmental and social concerns along with economic development. This makes aligning environmental (E), social (S) engagement and governance (G) performances with the company’s operation one of the largest business challenges and opportunities of our time. However, framing the ESG features into businesses is still largely neglected or ignored by policymakers and business leaders.

With a focus on the notion of the company’s interest, one of the central concepts of corporate law, and through using the perspective of institutional economics, I demonstrate that social and economic transformation has resulted in ontological changes that are not reflected at a regulatory level and are being omitted by scholars. This leads to the conclusion that it is also an attachment to the positivist, strictly formal approach to the law that makes the concept of a company’s interest out-of-date, unsuitable and inappropriate to counteract current social, environmental and economic challenges.

An analysis of the research into the conditions of economic development has yielded interesting conclusions. Together with the fact that the notion of well-being is now effectively challenging the dogma of profit and growth, this implies institutional adaptation and a departure from the neoclassical understanding of the concept of corporate interest as both necessary and inevitable.

Taking the perspective of institutional economics means that the article aims to identify the assumptions of institutional economics at the regulatory level. In other words, it assesses the law as a socially relevant issue in a broader institutional context, in which legal regulation (also in the form of comparative legal research) is typically evaluated. The methodology used in this article goes beyond the formal interpretation of legal texts, instead focusing on the social and economic importance and the impact of legal regulations.

The interest in revisiting the issue of a company’s interest has been motivated by the widespread consensus (in Polish academic debate) that a company’s interest is determined by the interest of its shareholders. Meanwhile, as Lynn A. Stout wrote, stopping at the concept of shareholder value as the sole determinant of a company’s purpose and the corporate governance model would be a great loss in the context of the enormous potential of corporations to perform important economic and ethical functions.

Słowa kluczowe

ekonomia instytucjonalna, rozwój gospodarczy, korporacja, spółka kapitałowa, interes spółki kapitałowej, ESG, zrównoważony rozwój

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