kishor Jagirdar

I have been watching the debate around   “the case against CSR”   with interest. The fundamental point where we all seem to get stuck is around “the role of business.” Economists and many CEOs argue that the role of business is to  maximize  shareholder profits, whereas the CSR community talks about contribution to society for the greater good. I believe that the essential problem about the role of business cannot be resolved within our current framework of thinking unless we add another element – “The element of Trusteeship.” The TATA group of companies is based around this principle. Trusteeship is the model of responsibility that best describes the group founder – JRD Tata’s view of himself and his role in the world. It was a view that JRD essentially derived from Gandhi. Gandhi talked frequently about the role of business as being that of a trustee or a steward for what you hold. Gandhi’s view of trusteeship was based on the belief that we do not really ‘ow...

It is not the fittest who will survive the change but those who are having the ability to adopt to change – Charles Darwin Understanding the change that is hitting all of us and managing it has become almost the primary task to survive as a business enterprise The current change that is engulfing every industry with market volatility, rules being made and broken on almost daily basis, we are witnessing unprecedented churn that will bring in new breed of start ups and many of the old will sink. Many more even in the fortune 500 may not live to exist in the next 5 years. This is not to be mistaken as a passing storm but a permanent changed weather. Socially people are waking up to the fact all that we have known in the last 60 years and identified ourselves with in terms of prosperity, life styles, challenges, dependence, status symbol etc are completely disconnected with our natural support systems. Across the coffee table I find the discussion on ‘Greed’ quite intriguing as thi...