The theory of symbolic management reveals a pervasive pattern of 'symbolic decoupling' - a separation between appearances and reality - at every level of the governance system. At each level the processes of governance are less efficient or effective than they appear; from interpersonal relations within organizations such as those between CEOs and directors, top managers and lower-level employees, to relations between firm leaders and external stakeholders such as journalists and security analysts. There is even a separation between appearances and reality at the level of the governance system itself.

In this book, James Westphal and Sun Hyun Park develop symbolic management into a major theoretical perspective on governance. Not only does symbolic management provide a compelling behavioral alternative to economic perspectives such as agency theory, but it subsumes economic theory. Agency theory is reconceived as a historically contingent institutional logic that became taken for granted among corporate stakeholders for a period of time and eventually replaced by a new logic of governance. Through a body of extensive empirical research Westphal and Park demonstrate how the symbolic management activities of firm leaders have contributed to this historical shift in prevailing logics of governance, and present a warning to regulators, investors, and the general public.