Commentators, analysts, and academics have long cherished the
notion that there is a fundamental contradiction between corporate
profit-seeking and ethical or social responsibility. In this
powerful, long-awaited response to these critics, John Hood argues
that business owners and managers have huge incentives to promote
economic and social progress. Moreover, he finds, the vast majority
do so. With compelling evidence, Hood demonstrates how the
incentives of the private sector marketplace dwarf those of the
public sector in advancing the common good.
Replying to those who assert that firms must have social
responsibilities beyond economic self-interest, Hood shows that
corporations seeking economic rewards have made enormous strides on
behalf of workers, families, consumers, and local communities by
developing new products and technologies, discovering new ways to
prevent workplace accidents, attempting to reduce bottom-line
costs, and furthering their own long-term interests through social
and community development. With detailed examples from nearly every
sector of industry, Hood describes the significant contributions
that most successful corporations have made to social welfare,
without sacrificing their allegiance to shareholder value. By
tracking the successful record of corporate involvement across a
range of benchmark areas such as revitalization of the inner city,
preservation of the environment, worker safety, and family values,
Hood documents how businesses have brought about a wealth of
positive changes to our communities.
Hood tells how Nationsbank of Charlotte, N.C., permits full time
employees to shift to part time, allowing expectant mothers who are
considered valued, experienced workers to stay on the job. To boost
inner city economies, Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 1980's financed
up to 95% of the costs of opening up franchises in urban areas. By
1993, sales at these stores averaged $50,000 more per year than the
rest of the franchise system. And The Golden Rule Insurance
Company, whose chairman believed that parents should have the right
to choose between public and private education, set up a charitable
trust that would pay half of the cost of private-school tuition for
500 deserving children in Indianapolis.
Through these and other examples, Hood turns the critics'
concept of the "socially responsible" business, essentially a
threat to free enterprise, on its head. Instead, by keeping a
strong link between innovation and markets and competition,
business continues to make its most serious social contribution by
doing what it does best: providing the foundation for our standard
of living and the new services that will allow us to live more
comfortably and efficiently in the future.
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