Big corporations in the era of stakeholder capitalism

Although the President’s team didn’t take part in any of the discussions on the evolving nature of capitalism, I couldn’t help but relate the debate to our own shores where big corporations have become mega institutions interwoven into public, government and private institutions. In a country boasting one of the highest levels of income and wealth inequalities (third highest in the world), the few with lots of private capital, and in monopolistic corporations are thriving for their stakeholders despite a nascent private sector that apparently holds the key to economic growth, economic diversification and jobs creation.

Stakeholder capitalism first reached its pinnacle in the early 2000s when British Prime Minister Tony Blair challenged corporate entities to take into account the interests of staff, customers, suppliers and the environment. Nowadays, the global technological, environmental, geopolitical, and socio-economic transformations of the past two decades are driving a re-examination of the prevailing corporate-governance model, just as they are posing fundamental challenges to many areas of public policy and governance.