The Business in Society: Can Companies Save the World?

Abstract

Few tasks are more urgent than rethinking the purpose of business, after one of the greatest economic convulsions in our history. Today’s heightened interest in the proper role of businesses in society has been promoted by increased sensitivity to environmental and ethical issues. Issues like environmental damage, improper treatment of workers, and faulty production, leading to customers’ inconvenience or danger, are highlighted in the media. The simple fact that we are human beings endows us with the responsibility to address and to try to alleviate some of these problems, yet, to answer the question in the title: Yes I am convinced that companies can save the world, but not in capitalism as it is lived today. The “Arab Spring” we saw in the Middle East in early 2011 is one of the more powerful indications of the ability of people to self-organize entrepreneurially to obtain what they want.