Sources of Structural Inequality in Managerial Labor Markets

Rakesh  Khurana; Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Article | Research in Social Stratification and Mobility | 2004

Sources of Structural Inequality in Managerial Labor Markets

by Rakesh Khurana and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

Abstract

This article proposes two mechanisms that allow actors to obtain unearned advantages in labor markets. The ﬁrst mechanism is consistent with collusive closure arguments. However, it questions the assumption that those who seek to beneﬁt from collusive closure will always initiate it. Instead, it suggests that under certain cultural conditions, closure may arise through a series of self-reproducing social constructions that restrict access to a position to those who conform to certain socially deﬁned criteria. The second mechanism is consistent with Sørensen's discussion of the role of composite rents in generating unearned advantages. Whereas Sørensen focused on composite rents between actors and productive assets, the mechanism presented here suggests that actors can obtain unearned advantages even if workers are not specific to productive assets, as long as there are composite rents between these productive assets. Data in support of the models are provided from the executive labor market.

Keywords: Management; Labor; Markets;

Format: Print

19 pages

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Citation:

Khurana, Rakesh, and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski. "Sources of Structural Inequality in Managerial Labor Markets." Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 21 (2004): 169–187.

The Still Leading case series includes an introductory note, “Still Leading (A): Issues in Transitioning to New Forms of Service Later in Life” and 10 supplementary cases that cover the transition of highly accomplished and prolific leaders (Hon. Robert McDonald, Hon. Mike Bloomberg, Gerry House, Lee Iacocca, General Claudia Kennedy, Sherry Lansing, Dr. Evelyn Murphy, Paul Newman, Hon. Colin Powell, and Louis Gossett Jr.). The Still Leading cases are part of an opening series of cases used in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University. The cases document a number of individual’s lifetime personal and professional trajectories. They focus on the nature of career processes and transitions. The materials offer an opportunity for readers to inductively reason about the structure of significant career transitions and the developmental patterns across different arenas. The cases also create a context for participants to engage in introspection by asking them to reflect on patterns of development in their own career histories.

Article | History of Political Economy | June 2017

The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital

Marion Fourcade and Rakesh Khurana

This paper traces the career of Michael Jensen, a Chicago finance PhD turned Harvard Business School professor to reveal the intellectual and social conditions that enabled the emergence and institutionalization of what we call the “neoliberal common sense of capital,” what others have called the “shareholder value” view of the American firm. Jensen's work was embraced by a generation of corporate raiders aggressively advancing new financial practices and discourses. His contribution, commonly understood as “agency theory,” was intertwined with the transformations in corporate management and governance of the last decades of the twentieth century—from the junk bond market in the 1980s to the exponential growth of CEO pay in the 1990s to the shareholder value management strategies of the 2000s. While debates about the spread of neoliberal ideas and governance tools have largely centered on the transformations of the state and international institutions or the role of actively organized intellectual networks, this essay emphasizes the importance of identifying specific carriers of particular transformations within the space of American “business discourse.”

Keywords: agency theory; corporate governance; executive pay; the firm; Michael Jensen; Neo-Liberalism; shareholder value; Agency Theory; Corporate Governance; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transformation;

Citation:

Fourcade, Marion, and Rakesh Khurana. "The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital." History of Political Economy 49, no. 2 (June 2017): 347–381. View Details

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Sources of Structural Inequality in Managerial Labor Markets

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