The concept of global responsibility is a new and evolving subject which goes well beyond traditional notions of corporate citizenship. In this article Professor Phillipe de Woot explores the ideas that are emerging out of the GRLI.RESPONSIBLE COMPANY and SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT A Contribution to GRLI Research Projects _______________________ By Prof. Em. Ph. de Woot 1 AWARENESS OF THE AMBIGUITIES OF OUR MODEL 1.1 The Creative Enterprise : Prometheus Competitive market economy, our present development model, has shown a continuous ability to be creative while progressively blurring its automatic link with global Common Good and escaping our capacity to regulate it. Without an in-depth adaptation it runs the risk of becoming unsustainable and losing its moral and political legitimacy. New corporate responsibilities are to be discussed in this perspective as well as “The Company of the Future” and “Revisiting the Purpose of Management Education”. Competitive market economy has many advantages: creativity, productivity, growth potential, flexibility…Entrepreneurship and innovation are at the heart of this system. If one were to observe successful firms over a period of five to ten years it could be seen that not a single one had failed to adapt, transform or renew itself. Each one would have evolved and innovated, be it in terms of its products, markets, procedures or organization, marking its actions as dynamic and creative. Under the spur of competition and technical evolution, the successful firm is not content simply to produce and distribute its goods and services. It constantly renews them and seeks to evolve to create the new. Initiative and creativity form the pivot of its undertaking. In the market economy the firm is the agent of economic and technical evolution. In this system the competition that really counts is the competition of new goods, new methods ,new supply sources, new forms of organizations(e.g. control of larger units) , in other words, competition that commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which affects not existing firms’ profit margins and volume of output, but their very foundations and existence.....(Schumpeter, 1949) This is the famous process of creative destruction.... To read on, you can download this article (16 pages; pdf) here
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