

Should Corporations Have a Purpose?
Purpose is currently one of the hottest topics in corporate governance. Commentators are demanding not only that corporations formally articulate a purpose, but that the corporate purpose embrace the interests of non-shareholder stakeholders or society more generally. In August 2019, the Business Roundtable issued a new statement on the purpose of the corporation, which replaced its former support for shareholder primacy with the proposition that corporations be run “for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.”[1] Shareholders have followed up, and several introduced shareholder proposals during the 2020 proxy season asking signatories of the … Read more