The Importance of Transparency, Perfect or Not

There is a battle going on today, raging in front and behind the scenes, for who is running the ultimate show, humanity or the corporation. Today, it is the corporation who holds the most money, power and decision-making authority. As such, companies have the greatest impact on life on Earth (read: well-being on Earth), more than any government or religious institution. If you question that statement, see the documentary “The Corporation” and it will become crystal clear. As 1st world companies have spent the past couple hundred years solely motivated by shareholder wealth, it is no surprise that all other areas of focus took a backseat. Today humanity is demanding a recalibration to respect all living things and the Earth, in addition to making a profit. We see this represented by consumer demand for “corporate responsibility” and “sustainable” business practices. One challenge faced, however, is that “the term corporate responsibility has no widely accepted definition, so how can we achieve a fuzzy objective” (Kolp & Rhea, 2006, p. 155)? The same holds true for sustainability, which may have even more interpretations than corporate responsibility. While this is unfortunate and messy, vision and language uncertainty are common during radical paradigm shifts such as this. As the saying goes, what gets tracked gets measured, and what gets measured gets done, so what is most important now is not to demand complete interpretative consistency, only that every business put their corporate responsibility stake in the ground, and then track, measure and communicate against it. Because “a transparent world will expose imposters” (Kolp & Rhea, 2006, p. 151) and even if the definition of imposter varies, we still know a moral swindler when we see one.

Comments

[Heidi Marmen]

Indeed - who is running the show? I believe many corporations hide behind the banners and mottos while still making as much money as possible. Creative book-keeping and elite legal advice keep consumers in the dark. CNN reported a major company (and regretfully, the name escapes me now!) who posted losses in the millions on their tax returns - in the United States. Their profits overseas were in the billions. Creative accounting allowed for this mis-information and the ultimate loss of Americans in general.
I think so much is lost between the philosophy and the hundreds of individuals who carry-out their mandates. Competence matters. Adding value matters. But this can get lost within the shell game of profit. Ultimately it is up to the consumers to research and invest in what matches their morals and values - but the truth is often hard to find. Who is running the small companies?