Abstract

This essay addresses the need for a new model of corporation, one which has corporations responsible for the environment in which they operate, and for nurturing all human beings who come into contact with them, and able to deliver sufficient returns to their investors. The main thesis is that the current paradigm of corporations, their model of governance, and their most fundamental priorities and objectives drives them into the selfish pursuit of profits at the expense of environmental and societal concerns, respect for people, and equitable distribution of wealth. With the advent of a free market economy in Hungary, there is an extraordinary opportunity to invent a corporate model, free of western history, yet informed by it. This is a time when it is critical to resist the pull to adopt the prevailing model of the western world, and to begin the invention of a new model in which concern for profits and growth is held on an equal footing with concern for people, for equity, for values being lived, such that the interests of all humankind and our environment are taken care of. This essays postulates what the new measures of corporate performance would need to be and examines the new accountabilities of managers and leaders that would follow