This paper presents a mixed methods analysis of proceduralised corporate governance as a technical practice which is “ impossibilist” because it not only inflates expectations but sets fundamentally unattainable objectives. An initial review of the systematic empiricist literature shows how disappointment with corporate governance is justified empirically because changes in procedure and new mechanisms (such as the insistence on more independent NEDS) have little ascertainable positive effect on shareholder value and firm performance. The argument about impossibilism rests on our own descriptive statistics. Governance misrecognises the mechanisms around value creation in giant public companies because it is not only public company managers but also shareholders who create value in a stock market which operates as a kind of Ponzi scheme. The argument about impossibilism is extended to public sector organisations through a case study of the BBC. A brief conclusion argues that impossibilism in the private and public sector is associated with a massive increase in the circulation of “sincere lies” whose longer term effect is an insidious discrediting of major private and public institutions and their managers.

Key words

corporate governance, giant firms, liberal collectivism