Conflict and Creativity at Work: Human Roots of Corporate Life

Contributes to the tide of activism that is calling for higher ethical standards and corporate social responsibility within the corporate world. It offers a new way to look at a company, work, a product and company organization. Nobel prizewinner Milton Friedman says that the only social responsibility a company has is to make a profit. Albert Low questions this basic assumption and provides an alternative view: a company is a complex field of interacting and conflicting forces out of which a product emerges. The interests of the stockholder make up just one set of these forces. The corporate system arises out of the natural creativity of human beings and is expressed in the work that we do. Therefore to understand a company, its organisation and its reason for being, we must understand creativity and work -- what they involve, and their importance to our mental health. This new understanding of social responsibility is imperative for the very survival of our way of life. 'Business Ethics' quotes Thomas Donahue, US Chamber of Commerce President, as saying, "There is something fundamentally out of balance when short-term considerations become so dominant." The book offers a new way to look at the corporate system and long-term corporate social responsibility. Depression is widespread throughout western society. A contributing factor is the way the corporate system operates. People are now adjuncts to the system and the result is alienation and impotence. China and India are looming as major industrial competitors, and their employees are very well motivated. To compete in the West we must revise the present antiquated corporate philosophy that asserts that the interests of the stockholder are the only interests that the corporation can legally serve and adopt policies that promote corporate social responsibility.