Governing corporations with ‘strangers’: Earning membership through investor stewardship

Abstract Despite decades of theorising and empirical research, the problems corporate governance seem intractable, particularly relationships between investors companies. The thought experiment in this paper asks us to look at problem through a fresh lens. It draws on quaint British legal custom calling shareholders “members”, then uses political philosopher Michael Walzer’s idea membership states, clubs, neighbourhoods, families draw lessons for world. This suggests that seeing how Walzer conceives “strangers” polity, with fewer rights but path membership, lets rethink shareholder as something be earned, engagement commitment, is, stewardship. Rethinking what company might mean points pragmatic escape from short-termism without institutional reform.