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Business Succeeds When It Cares About Community

In: Business and Management

Submitted By kierannolan92
Words 1527
Pages 7
Business succeeds when it cares about community

“The primary objective of a firm is to maximise its profit and its primary accountability is towards its shareholders/owners” Although I can see how in most instances the main objective of a firm is to maximise it’s profit, I do not believe that it necessarily follows that the primary accountability is to the shareholders and owners. I would like to present the following argument that suggests real success can be achieved by working with and caring for communities and stakeholders. If we were to believe that companies would only succeed by looking after their shareholders we would surely limit the opportunities for any firm to have any community purpose and would remove any of the benefits that can be achieved by working with other key stakeholders. Firms can benefit greatly from interaction with wider stakeholders and can reap benefits when they care about their communities because these communities can be seen to work together with firms to support mutual success. In outlining my views I will refer to three theories, namely stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory and agency theory and make a case for how an interaction of these theories will support my views that business succeeds when it cares about its community. Stakeholder Theory, (Financial Times Lexicon, 2011), ‘Stakeholder theory suggests that the purpose of a business is to create as much value as possible for stakeholders. In order to succeed and be sustainable over time, executives must keep the interests of customers, suppliers, employees, communities and shareholders aligned and going in the same direction. Innovation to keep these interests aligned is more important than the easy strategy of trading off the

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