Do corporations have a social responsibility? In a time where a Wallmart has the same number of employees then there are citizens in the capital of Europe, one could easily argue that they do. Some companies are as big in terms of revenue as some European countries (a comparison that is a bit flawed, I admit).
But why should they take social responsibility? In capitalistic terms, companies exist to make profit, not to 'do good'. According to Michael Porter in the interview here under, they should do so as a capitalist reflex. Fair enough, some forms of social responsibilities can lead to tremendous -and profitable- innovations. Furthermore, the scale at which multinational firms operate can enable small, local initiatives to be leveraged globally, and profitably.
In short, according to Porter, if we want to make companies behave in a more responsible way, we should show them where the profit is -or they should find out themselves. No sense of 'moral duty' in our capitalistic system. It's a bit a sore thought, according to me. There should be other reasons for companies to have a social consciousness... Risk aversion, image building, raising attractiveness to younger employees, ... OK, indirectly these relate to maximizing profits as well, but they're surely softer arguments to 'do good', and I see plenty of evidence for these motivations in the companies I work with... Perhaps it's even the capitalist logic itself that is slightly changing, but perhaps that's wishful thinking...
One of the scary consequences of the ideas of mr. Porter would be that a very profitable enterprise would be to have a company or a group of companies that first create a mess and than also provide the means to clean it up. In fact that's exactly what the economy of war is about these days.
ReplyDeleteI therefore also do not think that profit maximalisation is a good motive to get companies to 'do good'. I admit that 'corporate responsibility' is a bit outside the core motive of a company and as such does not always seem like a convincing argument, because it seems to be something that companies should do 'on the side' of their normal business, but that should in fact not matter. For this is something we all live with all the time. Being responsible citizens is something 'on the side' of 'trying to make a living', but that doesn't make it less valuable or necessary. So a moral reflex might not be the core motive of some of our actions, but if we wish to live together in a just world, we always need to keep our moral reflexes in mind. And one of those reflexes simply seems to be that the profit motive shouldn't always rule everything.