IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orstsc/v8y2023i2p288-301.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Promises and Perils of Corporate Purpose

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Kaplan

    (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada)

Abstract

Corporate purpose is taking off as a concept within both the corporate world and management academia. Despite many bold pronouncements by companies about pursuing purpose and not just profits, evidence suggests that these are often decoupled from real action on social and environmental issues. In this essay, I grapple with a number of questions that arise for scholars and practitioners given the state of the field. Is the lack of progress intentional such that corporate purpose is just a power grab for firms to protect their influence and profits? Is making the business case for corporate purpose just part of this power grab? Stepping back, what is corporate purpose anyway? Additionally, how does it relate to trade-offs across stakeholders? Who counts as a stakeholder? How can we account for value distribution along with value creation? How can we conceptualize the firm if we take purpose seriously? What would it mean to decenter the firm (and center the stakeholders) in the practice of corporate purpose? What governance structures are needed to enact corporate purpose? Additionally, what are the implications for a new model of decentered leadership? There are not a lot of answers yet, but this review of recent research in the domain spots many excellent clues and paths for future progress.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Kaplan, 2023. "The Promises and Perils of Corporate Purpose," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(2), pages 288-301, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:8:y:2023:i:2:p:288-301
    DOI: 10.1287/stsc.2023.0187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2023.0187
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/stsc.2023.0187?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:8:y:2023:i:2:p:288-301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.