Quale governance dopo la crisi? Mercato, Stato e responsabilità Per l'avvio di un dibattito
Spurred by reflections on the present international crisis, this article aims at offering a survey of the contributions coming from the scientific debate concerning both governance and the social responsibility of enterprises.
As regards the former, in the wake of the economic crisis both scholars and institutional representatives have been confronted with a clear example of a market failure which has interrupted the process of convergence in models of governance pursued by the major countries, and has raised a strong demand for new regulations, mainly, but not solely, in finance.
As regards the latter, the whole system of social responsibility – developed through the codification and assessment of best practices that could be a model for enterprises which aspired to define themselves responsible – has produced unsatisfactory results, unable to guarantee a consistent relationship between statements of principles and real behaviours.
The conclusion is that, as neither regulations nor practices concerning responsibility can be an effective guarantee against risks of system degeneration, only an action taken by the management coalition authentically inspired by principles of ethics and responsibility can represent the premise of a sustainable, and therefore stable, development of the economic system. In this perspective, regulation has the function of decreasing the costs of responsible behaviours and they, in turn, can show their usefulness guaranteeing the stability of enterprises in the medium and long run.
