Listen to Colin Mayer of Oxford University in discussion with Social Europe Editor-in-Chief Henning Meyer. They discuss the future of the corporation with a particular focus on why businesses are so often failing to fulfil their societal role and why rediscovering the historic purpose of business is the best way forward. Colin Mayer, CBE, is Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He was a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University, a Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England, the first Leo Goldschmidt Visiting Professor of Corporate Governance at the Solvay Business School, Université de Bruxelles, and has had visiting positions at Columbia, MIT and Stanford universities. If you are interested in our podcast you might also find our regular articles, blogs and other written publications of interest. Just visit our website www.socialeurope.eu to read our latest output. If you want to stay up-to-date with all things Social Europe just sign up to our regular newsletter. You can do so on our website. 

Colin Mayer: The Future of the Corporation - Why Businesses need to rediscover their historic purpose

The mission of Social Europe (SE) is to strengthen democracy by finding and discussing solutions to the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. We use the values of freedom, sustainability and equality as the foundation on which we examine society's most pressing challenges.

We are committed to publishing cutting-edge thinking and new ideas from the most thought-provoking people. Our in-depth analyses and constructive proposals seek to link policy-making to wider societal concerns. It is our goal to promote progressive societies, sustainable economies and responsible business.

News

Politics

Around the world, education 'reforms' have made schooling more market-mimicking and competitive, rendering education a 'club good' for the better off. Finland shows how treating education as a public good and teachers as autonomous professionals brings better student performance overall, without intrusive and expensive inspection.

Pasi Sahlberg: lessons from Finnish education

Philipp Ther, professor of central-European history at the University of Vienna and director of its Research Centre for the History of Transformations, talks to Robin Wilson of Social Europe about how societies which show hospitality to refugees in the long run benefit from their openness. Prof Ther is author of The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe Since 1492 (Princeton University Press).

Philipp Ther: The Outsiders

Albena Azmanova is an associate professor in political and social thought at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies and author most recently of Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity can Achieve Radical Change without Crisis or Utopia (Columbia University Press). She talks to Robin Wilson, acting editor-in-chief of Social Europe.

Albena Azmanova: Capitalism on Edge

Thomas Piketty is a French economist who is professor of economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), associate chair at the Paris School of Economics and centennial professor of economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics.

Thomas Piketty: Capital and Ideology

Vivien A. Schmidt, Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of International Relations, and Professor of Political Science at Boston University talks to Social Europe about Europe's crisis of legitimacy and the interrelationship between democratic legitimacy at the European level and the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

Colin Mayer: The Future of the Corporation - Why Businesses need to rediscover their historic purpose

Download our free app to listen on your phone