Sustainable role of a company | In the world and its environment

The role of a company is often misunderstood. If we think of companies, we often think about money, economy, or power. We never think about their actual activities, especially if they are big. If we think about UBS for example, we picture managers, crazy payments, and scandals. Same thing for Pharmaceutical producers. Even Nestlé is more often associated with scandals than with their actual activity. You should decide if the mentioned examples are good or bad ones. However, negative relations are often based on the money craving businesses have. But do they really? Such a business is not always focusing on money. They often have a real motivation and are looking for satisfaction within society. Google, for example, did not start its business willing to achieve what they have today (Google, 2017). They wanted to develop a better search engine, the passion was the real push and not the money (twgoogle, 2017). Let’s call that a “real reason for existence”. Furthermore, it does not seem to be a coincidence that employees of companies with such a real reason for existence are happier and therefore more productive. Those companies would still exist, even if the capitalistic system would collapse (Luhmann, 1995). That is why companies should think about how they act and communicate in society, especially if they anyways do the “right thing”.

Figure: Where is the mindset of a company settled? What is its role? (Stiftung Umweltbildung Schweiz, 2012) – Self-Made

Sources:

• Google (2017). Products. Retrieved May 18,

• 2017, from https://www.google.com/about/products/

• twgoogle (2017). Passion not perks. Retrieved May 18,

• 2017, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/passion-not-perks/

• Stiftung Umweltbildung Schweiz. (2012). Nachhaltige Entwicklung. Beilage Umweltbildung.ch, 1–4.

• Luhmann, N. (1995). Sich im Undurchschaubaren bewegen Zur Veränderungsdynamik hochentwickelter Gesellschaften. In R. Grossmann, E. E. Krainz, & M. Oswald (Hrsg.), Veränderung in Organisationen: Management und Beratung (S. 9–18). Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11716-2_2