Global business responsibilities

The concluding chapter draws on the previous analyses and flows from a simple question: how can the global business community instate faith in our collective abilities to confront the challenges faced by the global community? The 2008–2009 financial crisis exposed clear failures of responsibility and accountability. Many of the articles in this section lay emphasis on ethics and trust.

The first five articles scrutinize under a different lens the importance of leadership and education: a vision of the balance to be found between getting the right results and getting results the right way; the over-reliance of functional expertise at the expense of wisdom; a change in our educational systems to train a new generation of leaders with a better understanding of the respective roles of government and business to solve global problems; rewarding ethical behaviour throughout the chain of command to avoid ethical lapses; and encouraging human talent as the engine of innovation.

We then turn to supply-chain responsibility from a global and multi-­sectoral perspective. This is followed by a proposition for ­global companies and governments to manage the new risks associated with trade and international capital flows. The next two articles underline in different ways the importance of building long-term coalitions under rules that align corporate objectives with those of government and society.