Rethinking Corporate Power to Tackle Grand Societal Challenges: Lessons from Political Philosophy

In this essay, we review and discuss potential changes to dominant governance approaches that may help business leaders play a more active role in global sustainability issues. Instead of refining the ideas from traditional management paradigms, we seek to be intentionally provocative by bringing in fresh ideas from new, influential works on political philosophy to unlock businesses' ability to enhance the long-term sustainability of the communities where they operate. Collectively, the reviewed books point to the importance of moving corporate governance approaches from their current dominance on shareholders' interests to a greater emphasis on more collaborative arrangements that integrate a broader set of stakeholders' interests in a manner that accounts for the financial as well as social and environmental implications of corporate action. It is not our intention to engage in a philosophical discussion of these works, but rather to obtain relevant insights from a related discipline that can help us add novel ideas to existing corporate governance debates.