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Deeply Responsible Business
Book

Deeply Responsible Business

A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership

Geoffrey Jones
Harvard UP, 2023
First Edition: 2023
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Applicable
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

Global businesses focus ruthlessly on profit, exploiting their wealth and position to manipulate politics and the law. Some commentators argue that capitalism has become so greedy it threatens the social order, democratic governance, and the environment. Instead, Harvard professor Geoffrey Jones contends that business leaders and their companies can reimagine capitalism. If they do, they can prioritize its social purpose, deprioritize maximizing profits, and provide more philanthropy. If companies practiced their stated values instead of pursuing power and profits, Jones believes they could help make the world a better place.

Summary

During the Industrial Revolution, some business leaders still valued human dignity above all else.

The Industrial Revolution didn’t start in earnest until the late 18th century in Britain. Workers’ wages had stagnated in major urban manufacturing centers, and workers labored in dangerous conditions. Government regulations didn’t exist, and child labor was common. Companies ruthlessly exploited their workers. By the 19th century, Charles Dickens described the harsh conditions of British industrial life in Hard Times, and Karl Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, called the industrial city of Manchester, England, “Hell on Earth.”

Some employers didn’t believe economist Adam Smith’s claim that market forces would benefit everyone. They believed employers should improve employees’ lives. For example, textile manufacturer Robert Owen provided his employees with an entire community that included schools and a cultural center. He recognized that his workers lived in often debilitating conditions, and when he helped improve their lives, his company profited.

In Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries...

About the Author

Geoffrey Jones is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School. He also wrote Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship.

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