Call for Papers: Edited Collection on The Nature of the Corporation

The corporate form underpins most corporate law scholarship and often needs distinct conceptualisation as an actor in other legal disciplines. Outside of the law, a number of disciplines study or interact with the corporate form.

Sometimes these different approaches look at different facets of the corporate form or the same facet in a different way. Sometimes, they use different language to look at the same thing; sometimes, the same language to look at different things. This call for papers is for chapters in a three-volume work that examines and provides different perspectives on the nature of the corporate form.

The first volume will focus on understanding the corporate form as a main unit of legal study, and so is likely to mostly contain different ways of understanding the corporation from within corporate law. The second volume will focus on the law’s understanding of the company as an actor, so it is likely to mostly contain different legal disciplines outlining what the corporate form is from their perspective. The third volume will be non-legal and explore non-legal perspectives on the corporation. The intention is to include as wide a range of views on this topic as possible and so no perspective will be invalid.

It is expected that chapters will be approximately 8,000-12,000 words length (including references), with a submission deadline of December 2025.

We invite submissions targeted at any volume, on the corporate form, from any perspective (within the law or without). Traditional conceptual understandings of the corporate form are as welcome as novel ones.

Submissions

Please send a 250-word abstract and short CV to jonathan.hardman@ed.ac.uk by 17 January 2025. If you have any queries, please email jonathan.hardman@ed.ac.uk. Decisions on submissions will be communicated to authors by 31 January 2025.

Jonny Hardman is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.

Billie Lythberg is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland. 

Christoph Van der Elst is a Professor at the University of Tilburg.

Susan Watson is a Professor at the University of Auckland.