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Turn Public Problems to Private Account (Classic) Rodman C. Rockefeller 5,578 words 1 August 2003 Harvard Business Review 129 0017-8012 English Copyright (c) 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. For business executives, the question of social responsibility is at once personal and professional. As Rodman Rockefeller notes in this prescient 1971 article, many managers dedicate a considerable portion of their personal time, not to mention savings, to charitable causes. They also face increasing calls to invest corporate resources in such causes. The trade-offs here become more difficult. How do you balance a commercial enterprise’s very real economic imperative to maximize profitability with its more hypothetical moral imperative to improve society? Rockefeller draws on his experience as president of IBEC, an economic-development company that operated in many countries, to provide one answer. Viewing profit as “an essential discipline and measurer of economic success” but not “the sole corporate goal,” IBEC actively invested in social programs that met four criteria: They served a real need of the local population, they required innovative approaches, they made sense on economic grounds, and they respected the social norms of the community. Such efforts, Rockefeller argues, not only improve people’s lives but also create the foundation for more affluent and dynamic markets—markets that ultimately produce greater profits for business. One of the more challenging problems facing American businessmen is how we and our corporations can relate to some of today’s pressing societal problems without compromising our responsibilities to maintain profitable growth. Certainly many of us are deeply and sincerely concerned with the social and environmental questions that confront our nation. We have demonstrated this concern repeatedly by giving selflessly of our time and effort to help create organizations like the National Alliance of... [continues]

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