Corporate Social Performance
Corporate Social Performance - Measurement
Corporations - Generally
Corporations & Society - History
Foundations & Charities - Regulation
Legal Treatises – Fiduciary Duties
Manuals - Mutual Fund Directors
Money & Life
Personal Finance with SRI Bent
Shareholder Advocacy
Social Investing - Australia
Social Investing - Canada
Social Investing - UK and Europe
Social Investing - US
South Africa
Tobacco Policy

Corporate Social Performance

Kevin Phillips, Wealth & Democracy (New York: Broadway Books, 2002). Simply put, the most important book on the relationship between corporations and society written in the last 80 years. Invaluable for its historical perspectives and economic data and Phillips' brilliant analysis.

Marjorie Kelly, The Divine Rite of Capital (San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2001). An excellent exploration of the meaning of corporations in American society, and a plan for action for new forms of corporate citizenship.

Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). No book better describes what's at stake in corporate accountability. Factual not polemical.

Robert A.G. Monks & Nell Minow, Power & Accountability (New York: HarperCollins, 1991). http://www.thecorporatelibrary.com/power/index.html The role of institutional investors in reforming corporate governance & behavior; brilliantly written, thought-provoking and utterly wrong-headed.

M. Moskowitz, et al., Everybody's Business (New York: Doubleday Currency, 1990). The classic almanac of the most influential US corporations. The prior edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1981) is worth having for companies transformed between editions.

M. Moskowitz, The Global Marketplace (New York: Macmillan, 1987). The 102 most influential non-US companies.

S.D. Lydenberg, et al., Rating America's Corporate Conscience (Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley, 1987). Profiles of leading American corporations.

Adolf A. Berle & Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation & Private Property [1932] (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1991). The intellectual basis for the New Deal regulations of the securities industry. Still an important resource on the relationship between corporations and society, albeit one whose fundamental historical premises modern research have show to be dubious. Berle's 1967 introduction, alone, is worth the price of the book for its fascinating appraisal of where the corporation had come since the Depression and where it would head. He also foresaw the emergence of activist institutional investors.

Louis D. Brandeis, Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914). The problems of corporate disclosure, interlocking directorates, and investment research are not new, as Brandeis' famous Harper's polemics prove. Twenty years later, what Brandeis saw necessary became the Securities Acts and the core of the New Deal corporate legislation.

Charles F. Adams & Henry Adams, Chapters of Erie [1871] (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1967). How did laissez faire work? Why was regulation of corporate behavior a necessity? How early did the threat of corporations to the polity that gave them life emerge? Why is Kevin Phillips' (q.v.) on the money? C.F. Adams provides the answers. (Skip the chapters by Henry Adams alone.)

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations [1776/1789] [Glasgow ed.] (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1981), vol. 2, V.i.e.15-17, pp. 740-41. Smith on the joint stock company, the ancestor of today's corporation. The Smith you didn't read in school.

David Vogel, The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2005).

Kevin Phillips, Wealth & Democracy (New York: Broadway Books, 2002).  Simply put, the most important book on the relationship between corporations and society written in the last 80 years.  Invaluable for its historical perspectives and economic data and Phillips’ brilliant analysis.  The book on which the 2004 and 2002 elections should have been fought.

Marjorie Kelly The Divine Rite of Capital (San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2001).  An excellent exploration of the meaning of corporations in American society, and a plan for action for new forms of corporate citizenship.

Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York:  Simon & Schuster, 2000).  No book better describes what’s at stake in corporate accountability.  Factual not polemical.

Robert A.G. Monks & Nell Minow, Power & Accountability (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).  http://www.thecorporatelibrary.com/power/index.html The role of institutional investors in reforming corporate governance & behavior; brilliantly written, thought-provoking and utterly wrong-headed.

M. Moskowitz, et al., Everybody's Business (New York:  Doubleday Currency, 1990).  The classic almanac of the most influential US corporations.  The prior edition (New York:  Harper & Row, 1981) is worth having for companies transformed between editions.

M. Moskowitz, The Global Marketplace (New York:  Macmillan, 1987).  The 102 most influential non-US companies.

Edward S. Mason, ed., The Corporation in Modern Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959).   Fourteen essays by top scholars which illuminate how recently the concept of the shareholder as king was not accepted dogma.  Particularly illuminating is Norton Long’s essay on the relationship of corporations to their communities and Eugene V. Rostow on to whom management is responsible.

Adolf A. Berle & Gardiner C. Means, The Modern Corporation & Private Property [1932] (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1991).  The intellectual basis for the New Deal regulations of the securities industry.  Still an important resource on the relationship between corporations and society, albeit one whose fundamental historical  premises modern research have show to be dubious.  Berle’s 1967 introduction, alone, is worth the price of the book for its fascinating appraisal of where the corporation had come since the Depression and where it would head.  He also foresaw the emergence of activist institutional investors.

Louis D. Brandeis, Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914).  The problems of corporate disclosure, interlocking directorates, and investment research are not new, as Brandeis’ famous Harper’s polemics prove.  Twenty years later, what Brandeis saw necessary became the Securities Acts and the core of the New Deal financial services legislation.

Charles F. Adams, Jr. & Henry Adams, Chapters of Erie [1871] (New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1967).  How did laissez faire work?  Why was regulation of corporate behavior a necessity?  How early did the threat of corporations to the polity that gave them life emerge?  Why is Kevin Phillips’ (q.v.) on the money?  C.F. Adams, Jr. provides the answers.  (Skip the chapters by Henry Adams alone.)  Beware of paperback editions omitting C.F.’s “The Railroad System”, the most important essay in the book, which focuses on the future of the corporation.

Corporate Social Performance - Measurement

Steven D. Lydenberg, et al., Rating America's Corporate Conscience (Reading, Mass:  Addison Wesley, 1987).  Profiles of leading American corporations.  The first systematic attempt to rate corporate performance by KLD’s former, long-time research director.

Top of Page

Corporations - Generally

Patrick B. Crawford, “Review: The Genius of American Corporate Law by Roberta Romano”, 49 Bus. Law. 955 (1994).  Thought-provoking, favorable review of Prof. Romano’s “law and economics” overview of corporate law (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1993).

Walter Werner, “Corporation Law in Search of its Future”, 81 Columbia L. R. 1611 (1981).  A brilliant summing up of American law at a turning point which seems ever-more important.  A reminder that just a short time ago, the “legitimacy” of the corporation was a major issue.  Meticulously sourced.

Walter Werner “Management, Stock Market and Corporate Reform: Berle and Means Reconsidered” 77 Columbia L. R. 388 (1977).  A fascinating reappraisal of the relationship between corporate behavior and the stock market.  Well-argued and thoroughly sourced.

Corporations & Society - History

John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Company:  A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003).  Company here = corporation as it is known in the US and UK.  Too cursory, too poorly documented, too opinionated to be worthwhile.

Malcolm Balen, The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble (New York: Fourth Estate, 2003).  A very well-told, well-written appraisal of the Bubble by a journalist.  But, the title is misleading – few ‘secrets’ here – and the author chose not to source.

Jack Beatty, Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America (New York: Broadway Books, 2001).  An attempt at a popular history by stringing contemporary accounts together with Beatty’s brief narratives.  Some interesting excerpts but disappointing overall.

William G. Roy, Socializing the Corporation (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1997).  As important a book on the nature of the corporation and its obligations to society as Berle & Means, q.v..  Unfortunately, not as well-written and therefore quotable.  Very strong on the historical context.  Difficult reading but rewarding.

Frederick G. Whelan, Edmund Burke & India: Political Morality & Empire, (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1996).  An invaluable guide to the political controversy surrounding the East India Company that dominated England and profoundly influenced the US during the 1780s when the Constitution was emerging and the first American corporations were appearing.

James Grant, Money of the Mind: Borrowing & Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken (New York:  Farrar Straus Giroux, 1992).  A fascinating, highly quotable history of banking debacles which places the blame precisely where it doesn’t belong: on the borrowers and the government.

Walter Werner & Steven T. Smith, Wall Street (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1991).  A misleadingly titled summarization of Werner’s rigorous appraisals of the historiography of early American corporations.  As a response to Berle & Means, q.v., view of the “separation of ownership and control”, though, it is not entirely persuasive.  Werner’s law journal articles, q.v., are indispensable guides.

Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap/Harvard Univ. Press, 1984).  Four loosely related essays on Charles Francis Adams, Jr., q.v., Louis Brandeis, q.v., James Landis and Alfred Kahn which generally argue for Adams’ non-prescriptive approach to regulation.  The essays remain valuable for their insights into the thought of these important figures, but McCraw’s cause – what’s now called de-regulation – looks discredited.

Ronald E. Seavoy, The Origins of the American Business Corporation, 1784-1855 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).  A scholarly appraisal of the nascent corporation in New York (the title is misleading).  Many fascinating insights.

Arthur Selwyn Miller, The Modern Corporate State: Private Governments & The American Constitution (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976).  A brilliant study of and source book on the connections between corporations and society and the Constitution.  Invaluable.  A must read.

John P. Davis, Corporations [1905] (Washington, D.C.: Beard Books, 2000).  The classic, much-quoted two-volume historical essay.  Most interesting now as an attempt – at a key transitional moment – to understand corporations.  But beware: Davis loved sweeping generalizations which, like the text generally, he rarely footnotes.

Top of Page

Foundations & Charities - Regulation

Marion Fremont-Smith, Foundations and Government: State and Federal Law Supervision (Russell Sage Foundation, 1965).  A classic, if now dated, treatise with much of interest from an historical perspective.

Legal Treatises – Fiduciary Duties

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, “The Legal Limits on the Integration of Environmental, Social and Governance Issues into Institutional Investment,” (New York & Nairobi: UNEP Finance Initiative, September 16, 2005).  http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/freshfields_legal_resp_20051123.pdf

Charles E. Rounds, Jr., Loring A Trustee’s Handbook, 2004 ed. (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2004) §6.1.3.  SRI usually violates trustee’s duty of loyalty.  Fails to cite or discuss all pro-SRI treatises and cases.  But see Peter D. Kinder, “Pensions & the Companies They Own” (2004), supra, for a rebuttal of Rounds’ arguments.

M.E. Phelan, Nonprofit Enterprises: Law and Taxation (Deerfield, Ill.:  Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1995) §§ 4.08-.11.  General discussion of directors fiduciary duties with respect to investments.  Brief overview of the varying state laws on subject.

H.L. Oleck, Nonprofit Corporations, Organizations, and Associations (6th ed.) (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:  Prentice Hall, 1994) § 304.  Brief overview of history of “legal investments” for charitable organizations.  Of particular relevance to New York.

Restatement (Third) of Trusts (Prudent Investor Rule) § 227 (Washington, D.C.: American Law Institute, 1992).  The rule itself does not mention social investing.  However, comment c. (pp. 8-9) approves of the practice.

Manuals - Mutual Fund Directors

James M. Storey & Thomas M. Clyde, The Uneasy Chaperone: A Resource for Independent Directors of Mutual Funds (New York:  Management Practice, Inc., 2000).  Excellent guide by Outside Counsel for the Domini Social Equity Fund.

Money & Life

Patricia O’Toole, Money and Morals in America (New York:  Clarkson N. Potter, 1998).  Thirteen interesting essays covering 400 years of Americans dealing with money; the late 20th century essay is on the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.

Top of Page

Personal Finance with SRI Bent

George D. Kinder, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity (New York: Delacorte, 1999).  Buddhist perspective.  No nepotism here or we’d rave about how good it is.

Bob Dreizler, Tending Your Money Garden (Sacramento:  Rossonya Books, 1998).  Nice primer on investment issues targeted at individuals.  (800) 929-7889.

Shareholder Advocacy

David Vogel, Lobbying the Corporation (New York:  Basic Books, 1977).  The classic study of social investment's modern origins.  Brilliant and prescient.

Social Investing - Australia

James Rose, Ethical and Active Shareholding (Elsternwick, Victoria, AU:  Wrightbooks, 2001).  The first social investment primer for Australia.  Nice introduction to a fluid market.

Top of Page

Social Investing - Canada

David Skinner, The Ethical Investor:  A Guide to Socially Responsible Investing in Canada (Toronto: Stoddard, 2001).

Deb Abbey & Michael Jantzi, The 50 Best Ethical Stocks for Canadians (Toronto:  MacMillan Canada, 2000).  Short profiles of choice companies.  Michael Jantzi is a KLD director.

Social Investing - UK and Europe

Céline Louche, Ethical Investment: Processes & Mechanisms of Institutionalisation in the Netherlands 1990-2002 (Rotterdam, 2004).  A unique, finely grained study of how SRI became a fact in financial institutions.  Some of the theoretical material is for academics only, but there’s much to learn for all who care about building SRI.  The author’s doctoral thesis and an excellent one.

Russell Sparkes, Socially Responsible Investment: A Global Revolution (London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2002).  A new primer for the global market from Britain’s leading expert.

John Hancock, Ethical Money (London: Kogan Page, 2002).

John Hancock, The Ethical Investor (London:  Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 1999).  Very good British primer.

Russell Sparkes The Ethical Investor (London: HarperCollins, 1995).  A good primer.  Also an excellent source for the history of British SRI.

Anne Simpson, The Greening of Global Investment (London:  Economist Publications, 1991).  Environmental investing in the UK and the EU, with extensive case studies of corporate response to the phenomenon

Top of Page

Social Investing - US

Amy L. Domini, Socially Responsible Investing (Chicago: Dearborn Trade, 2001). Exploration of the philosophy underlying SRI.

Hal Brill, et al., Investing with Your Values (New York: Bloomberg Press, 1999). A good, thorough primer for individual investors.

Brian R. Bruce, ed., The Investment Research Guide to Socially Responsible Investing (Plano, TX: Investment Research Forums, 1998). Available from publisher (972) 668-6400. Twenty-four articles from leading thinkers and managers. Invaluable.

J.B. Guerard, Jr. & A.S. Bean, R&D: Management and Corporate Financial Policy (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998). Chapter on SRI by leading writer on portfolio performance. See below.

J. Melton & M. Keenan, The Socially Responsive Portfolio (Chicago: Probus Publishing, 1994). Two financial journalists who have covered SRI for years look at the problems it poses for institutions.

P.D. Kinder, et al., Investing for Good (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993). The political strategies behind the screening process. Extensive discussion of fiduciary duties and performance of social portfolios. Also, a detailed study of global investing and the social investor.

P.D. Kinder, et al., The Social Investment Almanac (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1992). The first comprehensive survey of SRI. Contains articles dealing specifically with fiduciary issues. Extensive pro and con articles on performance of SRI portfolios.

L. Bush & J. Dekro, Jews, Money & Social Responsibility (Philadelphia: The Shefa Fund, 1993). A wonderful, compassionate guide for Jews and gentiles alike. To be read and reread.

J.A. Brill & A. Reder, Investing from the Heart (New York: Crown Publishers, 1992). The best-selling SRI guide for general audiences.

A.L. Domini & P.D. Kinder, Ethical Investing (Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1983).

J.G. Simon, C.W. Powers & J.P. Gunneman, The Ethics of Investment (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1972). A groundbreaking book far ahead of its time.

C.W. Powers, ed., People/Profits: The Ethics of Investment (New York: Council on Religion and International Affairs, 1972).

C.W. Powers, Social Responsibility and Investments (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971). The book from which all the others sprang.

South Africa

Robert Kinloch Massie, Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years (New York: Doubleday, 1998).  Why the actions of US activists (among them, investors) made a difference in South Africa.  Well written and carefully documented.

Top of Page

Tobacco Policy

Technical Assistance Legal Center & Counsel for Responsible Public Investment, Divestment Action Guide: Removing Government Investments from Tobacco (Oakland, CA, 2001).  A concise resource guide available from the writers.

S.A. Glantz, et al., The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley:  University of California, 1996).  Excellent academic treatment of the Brown & Williamson papers.  Perhaps the best exploration of corporate decision-making ever assembled.

R. Kluger, Ashes to Ashes (New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).  The definitive popular history of the cigarette business.  Well-written, but insufficiently annotated

Top of Page