Africa's Century

The 21st century is for Africa. As an African child and Generation X by definition, i feel duty bound, in the journey of my life time, to contribute to the development of this burgeoning continent through my researched views stimulated by the fast paced and changing global socio-political and economic landscape.


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An emerging African entrepreneur,strategist in the making, philosopher, revenue specialist, marketer and the community volunteer of note. My particular interests are on subjects, dialogue and debates relating to economics, international trade, sustainability, politics, environment, social entrepreneurship, technology, religion, health, science and business in general.

Monday, January 9, 2012

CSR and the legal principle of "limited liability". Is the latter principle still relevant for a modern corporation?

As i learn more about the sustainable value of a modern corporation as a responsible corporate citizen, i develop a deeper interest and inquisitive appetite of this global socio-economic phenomenon, i.e. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Since its theoretical development in the 1960's when the first arguements were posited on its relevance to the corporation motivated by profits, it has become a global force to be reckoned with. It is poised to become a proxy for a new sustainable capitalism as Al Gore, the former US Vice-President calls it. Arguements went further to define the meaning of S in CSR. That gave birth to what we know today as stakeholders through the stakeholder theory. Today it is no longer a debate, businesses are painstakingly attempting to fine tune themselves to align.

At the same time, there's one major factor that is not being considered amid the global activism of fine-tuning modern corporations to be responsible. This one factor - limited liability - is a legal principle developed to protect the risk takers (investors and entrepreneurs) in the form of incentive should the opportunity go down the drain or circa. It means owners of production have limited exposure in relation to business risks. According to some eocnomists, this was the best ever piece of a legal principle to be developed in the market economy. We are now in the 21st century and global force of CSR is reckoning. Is this legal principle still relevant? Well, owners of production are protected by this principle in terms of business misfortune. But what about the broader stakeholders? Suppliers and communities in particular. Imagine this scenario which has practically occured during the beginning of the global recession in 2008. Lehman Brothers and other global corporates come to mind.

If we accept that a community is a key stakeholder in a business, what is the form of incentive when a corporation goes bust. I am thinking about this in terms of corporate social responsibility. Isn't the community, as a stakeholder, supposed to be protected by the limited liability. A simple answer may be no, why should the community be compensated because it is not a risk taker in the business? The irony, however, is that when the US government funded various corporations it used tax money to rescue those corporations. So, the community, as a tax payer, rescues the business that it viewed the community as not a risk taker. The big question: Is a legal principle of a "limited liability" still relevant amid the reckoning global force of sustainable capitalism and Corporate Social Responsibility? Your thoughts will be valuable. 

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