December 12, 2011 12:30 PM
The Purpose Driven Firm
Posted by Aric Press
Long ago, in an otherwise forgotten law school class, I listened as the distinguished professor declared, with uncharacteristic emotion, “The purpose of a corporation is to make money.” Across the room, a young woman raised her hand and suggested that the professor might not be correct. “The purpose of Ford,” she politely offered, “might actually be to manufacture cars so customers can get around faster or more safely. Or the purpose of Bethlehem Steel [this was a long time ago] might be to produce beams on which a nation could be built.”
As I recall rather vividly, the professor would have none of it. “Young lady,” he insisted, “the purpose of a corporation is to make money.“
So much for being taught to think like a lawyer.
Now the crabbed views of our professor are being challenged again, this time by the redoubtable Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Harvard Business School professor. In an important article published in the November issue of the Harvard Business Review, she argues that “great companies” are more than “money-generating machines.” In her research into what she describes as
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