Corporate Responsibility: The End of the CompanyCésar González Cantón, professor of the Official University Master's Degree in Corporate Responsibility at Bureau Veritas Centro Universitario, writes this week about the purpose of the company on the occasion of the publication of the Code of Good Governance of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
The current discussion on the nature and scope of Corporate Responsibility often seems to assume, at least at a public level, that the purpose of the company is to maximize economic profit.
An egregious case: the recently published Code of Good Governance of the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) , states in its Recommendation 12 that companies must be guided by the promotion of social interest, understood as
such as achieving a profitable and sustainable business in facebook data the long term, which promotes its continuity and the maximization of the company's economic value.
The social interest is defined by the sustainability of economic returns. As could not be otherwise, the CNMV is aware of the importance of ethics and Social Responsibility for this, and therefore points out:
And that in the pursuit of social interest, in addition to respect for laws and regulations and behavior based on good faith, ethics and respect for commonly accepted uses and good practices, it seeks to reconcile its own social interest with, as appropriate, the legitimate interests of its employees, its suppliers, its customers and those of other interest groups that may be affected, as well as the impact of the company's activities on the community as a whole and on the environment.
Ethics and profit are meant to go hand in hand and support each other , like a good marriage. However, in the event that (God forbid!) one has to choose between one or the other, profit takes priority.
I do not mean to imply that ethics is in a lower league for the Code's drafters. I simply want to point out a conceptual weakness in this scheme: profit and ethics appear as extrinsic elements to each other. They are like water and oil: they should always go together, but in themselves they have little to do with each other. Edward Freeman has called this way of understanding it the "separation thesis . "
If this were “just” a theoretical problem, it would not be a big problem. But theoretical problems usually hide mental traps that either prevent a correct vision of things, or make us see things that are not true. Management work is carried out amidst many external and internal pressures, the least of which is not urgency and lack of time, and, in the end, what is needed is a clear idea (or two) to guide decision making . If this idea is that good management consists of maximizing economic benefits, we will never stop putting out the fires of immorality no matter how much good will we have. Hence the importance of rethinking these issues.
The classic triple division of business objectives into economic, social and environmental is a consequence of the separation thesis. Money must be made, but social and environmental value must also be created. Sometimes, unfortunately, you can't do everything. That's business.
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We would not accept this way of arguing about individual behaviour. So-and-so wants to buy a car. If she could, she would take out a loan and pay the installments religiously. But she cannot, and because she needs the car, she steals the money. Just as we find this unacceptable, business ethics must be able to be understood in another way .