Are companies sufficiently accountable?

John Lewis's latest weekly sales figures were released today. The important thing about these is not what they show, but the very fact that they exist at all. They highlight a paradox - that the UK company that is most transparent and up-to-date about its operating performance is a worker co-op, not  a publicly quoted one. AFAIK, no UK-quoted firm issues weekly sales numbers.
Why don't they? A few years ago, they could have claimed it was costly to compile them.  But this is no longer the case. Bloomsbury Publishing reported within hours that the latest Harry Potter book sold 2,009,524 copies in the UK within 24 hours of its release. If they can be that timely and transparent about their best-seller, they can do the same for their entire catalogue.
One reason why firms might be reluctant to issue weekly figures is that to do so would increase share price volatility. But this argument is lame. For one thing, it's not obvious that it should. Sure, irrational investors might over-react to noisy data. But on the other hand, more data should increase the accuracy of the valuation of companies.
No. I suspect the main reason firms don't issue weekly data is that they just don't want the scrutiny. They want to hide from shareholders. And shareholders let them do so.
This raises a really big issue. Is the stock market really the most efficient means of controlling company bosses? The difference between their lack of disclosure and John Lewis's openness - allied to Waitrose's good numbers - suggests it might not be. Indeed, quoted firms seem to be stuck in the dark ages of secrecy and inadequate accountability. As Joseph Fuller has said:

For a remarkably innovative economy, very little innovation has occurred in the fundamental form of structuring and running public enterprises over the last 100 years or so. Most of the attention of policymakers, academics and business executives has focused on 'perfecting' the form of public corporation. But, in doing so, they have lsot track of its original purpose, and that it remains plagued by structural problems, particularly the agency problem.

So, here are my questions. What type of company ownership structure does maximize efficiency (however you wnat to define it)? Under what conditions is the traditional stock-market quoted firm the optimal ownership structure? Are these conditions becoming more or less common?
The work of Luigi Zingales and Shann Turnbull, among others, might help answer these.

Comments

[Robert Schwartz]

"Bloomsbury Publishing reported within hours that the latest Harry Potter book sold 2,009,524 copies in the UK within 24 hours of its release."

And you believed them.