Sunday, December 04, 2005

What is a Morally Acceptable Corporation?

What must a company do in order to add more value to society than it destroys? I'm trying to develop some rules.
Such a company must:

1. Provide something useful that doesn't currently exist or improve upon an existing product/service
2. Charge (directly or indirectly) for the product/service
3. Actively recognize and identify the entire cost of production. The easy example is environmental pollution, but there are many potentially unforeseen externalities that a company might face. It is hard to "do no evil".

In addition to these key ideals, I believe there are additional goals that should be pursued depending on the landscape of the market in which the company competes. Some of these are required for success, some apply more to the ethical questions raised above.
When entering an existing market with either a new competing product or an improvement on existing offerings, it is important to:

4: Disrupt existing market barriers to entry (both to survive and because it damages everyone other than incumbents)
5: Shift the value and usefulness of existing market competitors without driving them out of business entirely. In a reseller market, this might mean the creation of a consulting market so they can utilize their product expertise; for manufacturers it could mean communicating so they can begin to offer useful accessory products to your own (See Griffin Tech. vs. iPod).
6: Not exist solely as a money siphoning middleman. This is redundant to #1, but bears mentioning again. In addition to ethical problems with the middleman model, such businesses face a threat from the producer and consumers to connect directly and split the profits that you otherwise consume.


Raul

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