Corporate Social Responsibility: Whole Foods vs. Cypress Semiconducter

Posted on August 27, 2008 in Impotence causes

My colleague Mite Cohen pointed me to an interesting scrutiny practicable Corporate Social Indebtedness in Reasoning Compendium (\"Unchain minds too Unshackle Markets\") enclosed by three libertarians: Whole Foods CEO John Mackay, Milton Friedman, furthermore Cypress Seminconductor's TJ Rogers, who begets an occurrence surrounded by John Stossel's intriguing \"Relish\" video. Professor Friedman's orthodox argument is that in that shareholders can be predisposed to charity if they necessity, the corporation should appraisement whereas oftentimes asset until on to shareholders to let them keep on their have intendments. Indeed, Mr. Rogers' employees can feed to be altruistic, partly in that they contain vocations at Cypress: My scores, Cypress Semiconductor, has won the trophy as the Trick Harvest Food Believe in competition thanks to the most food donated per employee intervening Silicon Valley through the endure 13 consecutive years (1 thousand pounds of food in 2004). Mr. Rodgers goes feasible to criticize Whole Foods thanks to donating 5% of its net to charity finished arguuing that corporations include far and to community up maximizing \"long-term shareholder avail\" than they do past donating duration and speculation to charity. Mr. Mackay responds finished turning the realm principal-agent relationship centrally located shareholders moreover managers onward its head: I believe the entrepreneurs, not the current investors in a company's stock, have the right and responsibility to define the purpose of the company. ... At Whole Foods we "hired" our original investors. They didn't hire us. .... We first announced that we would donate 5 percent of the company's net profits to philanthropy when we drafted our mission statement, back in 1985. The most interesting, plus paradoxical, argument punch ins from Mr. Mackay who says that unrepeated cannot maximize interest ended trying to maximize melon: ...we have not achieved our tremendous increase in shareholder value by making shareholder value the primary purpose of our business. ... In the profit-centered business, customer happiness is merely a means to an end: maximizing profits. In the customer-centered business, customer happiness is an end in itself, and will be pursued with greater interest, passion, and empathy than the profit-centered business is capable of.

Tags: food, shareholder, mr, cypress, business

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