Conditions For A Trustworthy Commitment: Unpacking The Content Of The Purposes Of Profit-With-Purpose Corporations

In recent years, the concept purpose has emerged as a new craze in the business world, with stakeholders demanding that companies go beyond profit to address societal and environmental issues. This surge in interest is set against a backdrop of increasing public and academic scrutiny regarding the sincerity and impact of these corporate claims. In response to this phenomenon, our study proposes to delve into the content of corporate purpose with the aim of proposing a model that build on corporate purpose and Grand challenges literature. Our analysis utilizes a panel of profit-with-purpose corporations, especially French Sociétés à mission to evaluate how the content of their legal purposes, as stated in their articles of association, resonate with scholarly expectations and broader societal objectives. The results indicate a strong focus on broad responsibility issues and a unifying future vision, while revealing a lack of attention to environmental uncertainties and stakeholder interdependencies. The paper contributes a novel framework for understanding the formulation of corporate purposes, proposing dimensions that could be used to assess their trustworthiness and alignment with grand societal challenges. We argue for the importance of credible purpose statements in fostering stakeholder trust and discuss the implications for governance and the dynamic nature of corporate purpose commitments. This work offers a foundational step towards a more nuanced comprehension of the corporate role in a context of Grand challenges and suggests directions for future research in the governance of purpose.