Doing Business in the Public Interest
这篇2024年商业史会议主席演讲探讨了“以公共利益为导向做商业”的含义，通过分析企业决策案例，挑战了股东至上作为企业主要目标的传统观点。
The theme of the 2024 Business History Conference was “doing business in the public interest,” but what does it actually mean to “do business in the public interest?” This presidential address challenges the idea of shareholder primacy as the main purpose of business enterprises historically and examines various ways that business historians might approach the idea of businesses acting in a public interest. In particular, it analyzes instances in which corporations made a decision in the public interest without clear evidence that it would benefit their bottom line; cases where it would demonstrably hurt their bottom line to prioritize the public; corporations that made a decision allegedly in the public interest that actually turned out to be bad for the public interest; and corporations that made a decision that was bad for the public interest that also turned out to be bad for their own bottom line.