The worship of shareholder value began in 1976 when a journal article by Michael Jensen, "Theory of the Firm, " critiqued the prior system of managerial capitalism and set the stage for our modern era of capitalism, writes Martin.

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There are similar problems with another theory about the future of the firm: that information technology will slowly but surely deconstruct the company as we know it.

ECONOMIST: Re-engineering in real time

Although the theory that describes the interaction of quarks and gluons is on a firm conceptual footing, it is so complicated in practice that it can take years to make a single calculation of something like the shape of a proton even using the most powerful supercomputers.

ECONOMIST: Protons: Holey grail | The

Rather than thriving on this huge injection of management theory, however, the firm flirted with bankruptcy.

ECONOMIST: Management consultants and their clients

In theory, members of a unitary board combine two tasks: developing the firm's strategy, in the broadest sense, and ensuring compliance with the law and best practice.

ECONOMIST: America has Sarbanes-Oxley. Britain has Derek Higgs

This head of a small private equity firm is important because his theory on where the market is headed.

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And the board of K-theory, a maths journal owned by Springer, a German publishing firm, quit in 2007.

ECONOMIST: Scientific publishing

The theory behind this practice is that a brokerage firm invests its time and money training raw globs of clay into becoming high-powered, professional stockbrokers.

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