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Censorship stifles; inquiry liberates.

Censorship stifles;
inquiry liberates.

Business bashing: should corporates ‘care’?

Mai 13, 2014 12:00 am

Details

These are said to be unprecedentedly uncertain times for business, but one area where there seems to be much certainty is that businesses need to do more than be profitable providers of goods and services: they must also do the ‘responsible’ thing, do the ‘right’ thing, for the rest of society.

It has become received wisdom that in order to restore trust, business needs to re-orientate its culture and values.

Yet is maximising profit really at odds with social good? Could the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda conflict with the social benefits of profit-making business? How important is trust for profitability? In a world in which government is trusted even less than business, who should decide what ‘the right thing’ means?

Even the widespread adoption of CSR policies seems to do little to assuage concerns. To some people, promoting your ‘ethical’ CSR credentials can reek of hypocrisy. Sincere CSR projects can be dismissed as ‘greenwash’. When there is so little trust, can big companies ever satisfy their critics that they are doing enough?

But perhaps we should not expect businesses to ‘do good’. The urge to be socially responsible through initiatives beyond the central, profit-making purpose of a company may be missing the point about what really constitutes ‘doing the right thing’.

As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations almost 250 years ago: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ In turn, the drive to create new wealth provides the resources for many other social goods, from healthcare and education to funding the arts and museums.

Note on the Battle of Ideas satellite

This debate on “corporate bashing” forms part of the Battle of Ideas (BoI) festival, initiated by the Institute of Ideas and supported by a wide range of partners including the Zurich Salon. The BoI consists of two days of high-level, thought-provoking, public debate organised by the Institute of Ideas at the Barbican in London, and a series of standalone satellite debates throughout autumn 2014 in Europe and the USA.

Speakers

Alex Deane is a Rotary Scholar and World Universities Debating Champion, and is a non-practising barrister.  Alex was formerly Chief of Staff to David Cameron and he served as an adviser for the Australian Liberal Party’s re-election campaign under John Howard. He was the founding Director of Big Brother Watch. Today he is an elected Common Councilman in the City of London Corporation, serving on the main decision-making body in the Square Mile, the Policy and Resources.  He is also currently Managing Director in the Strategic Communications segment at FTI Consulting. Based in London he serves as a member of FTI’s Public Affairs and EMEA Corporate Communications practices. Until recently, Alex was Head of Public Affairs at Weber Shandwick.   He often appears in the broadcast and print media as a political commentator.

Dr. Richard Olsen: Swiss national Richard Olsen has combined academic research with hands on experience in financial markets. He founded Olsen & Associates in 1985, which developed and marketed a real time information system with forecasts and trading recommendations for financial markets, co-founder of OANDA, a successful internet market maker, and Olsen Ltd, a hedge fund. Richard is a pioneer of high frequency finance and has co- authored the book Introduction to High Frequency Finance, published at Academic Press in 2001. Together with a team of researchers he has recently discovered 12 new scaling laws of the foreign exchange markets continuing work on scaling laws that was first started in 1989. He is visiting professor at the Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents at the University of Essex.

Dr. Norman Lewis: Norman Lewis is recognised worldwide as an expert on future trends and user behaviours with regard to technology innovation and adoption. He has spoken on these topics at events all over the world. Norman is currently a Director at PwC responsible for running their crowd sourced innovation programme. He is a co-author of Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation.  Prior to joining PwC he was Chief Innovation Officer and Partner at Open-Knowledge – a global consultancy on enterprise social software. He was the Chief Strategy Officer of Wireless Grids Corporation, USA, and the Director of Technology Research for Orange UK, formerly the Home Division of France Telecom. He was also previously an Executive Board member of the MIT Communications Futures Programme and a former chairman of the ITU TELECOM Forum Programme Committee.

Chair

David Bowden: David has a core organisational role in producing both the Battle of Ideas weekend and convenes the festival’s 2 month long series of national satellite events. Outside of the festival he produces, chairs and speaks at events for schools, universities, festivals and business on a broad range of topics.  He also contributes to national broadcast and print media on issues relating to politics, the regulation of lifestyle, the arts and popular culture.  David has extensive experience in public affairs and communications, having worked with organisations including Libertas, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and DACS. He has a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter.

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