The metropolis is not so in its death throes1 of its operating income EUR 157 millionThe darker more dangerous it is despairObjective be ready for economic recoveryNow a stage of consultation is planned for this new ZAC08 while the Nikkei has appreciated by 6I the do not accept losing control of the groupAmaya is currently the best Indian in LondonStrong increase since October 23 the price of USo Air France left only good memories in PragueCREATIVE CAPITALISM
A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders
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directed by Michael Kinsley, New York, Simon & Schuster, December 2008, 336 pages.
Bill Gates, the greatest capitalists, and major philanthropists of human history, surprised Davos in January 2008 with a Conference on "A new approach to capitalism". It is time, pointed out, the largest global companies are working in the service of the poorest in the world. A year later, while capitalism is a serious crisis, the influential journalist Michael Kinsley has had the good idea to publish this rostrum accompanied by a dialogue with Warren Buffett and, above all, an anthology of criticism of CSR (corporate social responsibility).
This collection of e-mails (as on a blog) brings together prestigious, more or less new, more or less liberal signatures: Ed Glaeser, William Easterly, Richard Posner, Martin Wolf, Esther Duflo, Edmund Phelps, Robert Reich, Lawrence Summers, Gary Becker. The texts are still present on the website correspondence dialogues of high rank, it is not clear a great fervour for the project of the founder of Microsoft. For Milton Friedman, including managers of a company would have only a responsibility: maximize the profit. Has rigour, noted Friedman, if CSR helps to achieve this goal, then it must follow that route. There is therefore no principle moral obligation to the social direction of capitalism. Number of contributors follow this perspective and see an aberration in the positions of Gates.
Companies integrate social justice in their "business plan" is a noble idea, but it is just an idea, detached from reality and effectiveness. Gates considers that capitalist engineering is implicitly to the individual interest in the service of general interest. But this implementation to the service of others cannot go explicitly by an obligation, or even simple incentives. The "must read", therefore, on the issue, especially in these times of questions about capitalism.
INVESTING FOR CHANGE
Profit From Responsible Investment
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by Augustin Landier, Vinay b. Nair, Oxford University Press, 2009, 168 pages.
Augustin Landier and Vinay b. Nair teach finance. Believing that can validly reconcile Sri (socially responsible investment) and cost-effectiveness, they think that you can win money while changing the world. The ISR, which is more of a minority of activists, represents 10 of assets under management in the United States, or 2,300 billion, and more than 1,000 billion in Europe. The ISR is not a fad, but a structural movement, including accompanying the progressive feminization of management.
Landier and Nair, in this original and documented book, draw 3 profiles of investors which they ascribe a color (which makes it difficult photocopying). Yellow intervenes in markets without compromising with his principles, at the risk of underperformance. Blue, pragmatic, to compromise. Red no referee for the ISR if he thinks that it's profitable. Nevertheless, everything is relative, as it is more or less sensitive to the human rights, the environment, the work of children. In a sense, we are all investors colors, yellow for some themes, red or blue for others.
Pragmatic Landier and Nair invite to build portfolios diversified, without excluding sectors, but emphasizing the companies rated. Experts show a positive correlation between responsibility and profitability. Their portfolio, in retrospect, established results significantly higher S & P 500. The "virtuous" companies to ensure the loyalty of their clients, the commitment of their employees, and a certain limitation of legal and media risks.
CORPORATIONS AND CITIZENSHIP
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by Andrew Crane, Dirk Matten, Jeremy Moon, Cambridge University Press, 2008, 250 pages.
In this theoretical invoice book, 3 teachers in management, CSR enthusiasts, come back on the links between business and citizenship. To adapt some famous words of Aristotle, one could say that they consider that the business as the man is a political animal. Involved in work on the "citizenship" of business, our authors dissects the concepts with articles published in scholarly journals ("Business Ethics Quarterly", "Journal of Business ethics").
Their starting point is a very common finding. Whether wars, poverty, climate change, diversity, companies are increasingly called courts of ethics, responsibility and good practice. Interested in citizenship "cosmopolitan" of firms, the purpose of this is book most fundamentally on the integration of the business in society and integration into the company of its employees, its customers and all "stakeholders".
Three themes are discussed in depth. As "citizens", the companies are members of a globalized (now). They bring their values and to defend their interests. As "Governments", companies are communities in which to administer rights and to allocate resources. Finally, as subjects of deliberation and confrontation, the businesses are an "arena" allowing all stakeholders to assert their citizenship to their choices.
This conceptual exploration of three possible relationships between citizenship and company, that fishing by its length, is the order in the debate.
