The opportunities have been there all along but have been overlooked. Businesses acting as businesses, not as charitable donors, are the most powerful force for addressing the pressing issues we face. The moment for a new conception of capitalism is now; society’s needs are large and growing, while customers, employees, and a new generation of young people are asking business to step up. The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy.
It will also reshape capitalism and its relationship to society. Perhaps most important of all, learning how to create shared value is our best chance to legitimize business again. 26 Moving Beyond TradeOffs Business and society have been pitted against each other for too long. That is in part because economists have legitimized the idea that to provide societal benefit s, companies must temper their economic success. In neoclassical thinking, a requirement for social improvement—such as safety or hiring the disabled—imposes a constraint on the corporation.
Adding a constraint to a firm that is already maximizing profits, says the theory, will inevitably raise costs and reduce those profits. A related concept, with the same conclusion, is the notion of externalities. Externalities arise when firms create social costs that they do not have to bear, such as pollution. Thus, society must impose taxes, regulations, and penalties so that firms “internalize” these externalities—a belief influencing many government policy decisions.
The Essay on Business ethic and profit
To a large extent, I agree with this statement. Many companies owners suggested that successful business depend on how profitable the business is, instead of their ethical responsibility to the society. On the other hand, From a business owner perspective, practicing business ethic is time-consuming and costly. However,many multinational companies, including HSBC, Coca-Cola Company, Visa...... ...
This perspective has also shaped the strategies of firms themselves, which have largely excluded social and environmental considerations from their economic thinking. Firms have taken the broader context in which they do business as a given and resisted regulatory standards as invariably contrary to their interests. Solving social problems has been ceded to governments and to NGOs. Corporate responsibility programs—a reaction to external pressure—have emerged largely to improve firms’ reputations and are treated as a necessary expense.
Anything more is seen by many as an irresponsible use of shareholders’ money. Governments, for their part, have often regulated in a way that makes shared value more difficult to achieve. Implicitly, each side has assumed that the other is an obstacle to pursuing its goals and acted accordingly. Blurring the Profit/Nonprofit Boundary (Located at the end of this article) The concept of shared value, in contrast, recognizes that societal needs, not just conventional economic needs, define markets. It also recognizes that social harms or
