"Deeply Responsible Business Leaders in History"

This paper explores the history of business leaders who have since the nineteenth century pursued a broader social purpose than simply making profits and who have seen business as a way of improving society, and even addressing the world’s social and environmental challenges. This is defined as deep responsibility, as opposed to corporate social responsibility, which rarely changes anything, and is often primarily public relations. The paper intervenes in the confusing discourse about business responsibility by offering evidence what it has actually looked like in the past.
The paper draws on a forthcoming book (which will not be published at the time of the conference) and focusses on five characters. They are Edward Filene, the Boston retailer and promoter of credit unions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Robert Bosch, the founder of the German electronics firm; Anita Roddick, the founder of the The Body Shop, a British beauty business, and a social and environmental activist in the last decades of the twentieth century; and Ibraham and Helmy (father and son) Abouleish, the founders of the SEKEM organic food business in Egypt and social entrepreneurs.
These deeply responsible entrepreneurs shared a number of common characteristics. First, they created and sold products and services that were genuinely socially useful. Secondly, they interacted with other stakeholders with respect and humility. Thirdly, they understood the importance of community and believed that business had a role to play in contributing to their vitality. While Milton Friedman argued that businesses pursuing social responsibility were a threat to free societies, the actions of these deeply responsible business leaders created new freedoms.
It is evident that deeply responsible businesses have never been the norm. The last part paper explores why this was not the case.