8Defining the Sustainable Corporation: From Stockholders to Stakeholders
f (corp)
Said Dawlabani
“I believe the purpose of any business can evolve over time. This evolution of purpose is the result of the dynamic interaction of the various interdependent stakeholders with each other and with the business itself. Customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and the community all influence business purpose over time.”
Co-founder & co-CEO
Whole Foods Market
The Corporate VMEME Struggle
The corporation as we know it today has come to symbolize everything that has gone wrong with capitalism.1 Greed, power and political influence seem to be synonymous with the values that define corporate America, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. It seems that all large corporations have aided and abetted in moving more financial resources into the hands of the wealthy and taking jobs away from those who need them the most: the working and middle classes. While the average American continues to suffer through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, corporations continue to report record profits with record levels of remuneration for their CEOs.2 These disparities have provided a great source of discontent that has fueled the Occupy Wall Street movement and the hundreds of spinoffs like it all over the world. A simple realization lingers, namely that 1% of the population controls almost half of the financial resources of this country.
Has the American dream ...
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