The research question that motivates this paper is: “Why do elite management journals ignore the major problems facing humanity?” I offer seven reasons. Crucially, researchers have neglected how to reformat the self-governing, polycentric “Design Principles” of Ostrom into corporate constitutions, which can benefit all stakeholders. This article also aims to explore the possibility of publishing ideas to save humanity from existential risks posed by environmental degradation. This paper presents a paradigm-changing research agenda that extends the study of management to bottom-up, stakeholder-governed organisations. Cybernetic laws, illustrated by the practices of self-governing biotas, support the work of Ostrom. They explain: (a) why centralised command-and-control hierarchies are dysfunctional, (b) the insights of engineers who design self-governing automobiles to extend Ostrom Design Principles globally, (c) how to introduce into corporate charters the self-governing practices found in all living things. In this way, political democracies become supported rather than undermined by corporations. (d) How a self-funding, politically compelling tax incentive can transform corporations into Stakeholder Common Pool Resources. Their global distribution could help avert a ghastly future. The self-governing Olympic committee illustrates the design of bottom-up global networks. It self-selects its multi-disciplinary, self-governing international sporting networks. These include nested, self-governing national, regional, and community sporting organisations. Like living things and self-governing automobiles, “Markets or States” need not be required. Stakeholder corporations provide a way to engage with 8 billion people in becoming sustainably self-governing with bioregional, self-determined populations, based on their renewable endowments of human well-being resources.
Principal, Internatinal Institute for Self-governance
After an MBA from Harvard, Shann became a serial entrepreneur, co-founding two public mutual funds, three publicly traded firms, and other businesses that included a private equity business that acquired control and restructured 14 publicly traded firms. He initiated in 1971 and became... Read More →
