Jamie Dimon's Good Works Shouldn't Be Hidden
Businesses talk a lot about corporate purpose, so why don’t they provide evidence of how they’re doing in their yearly financial results?
A force for change?
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergThe first annual results season is underway since the Business Roundtable, a U.S. group of top bosses chaired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive officer, Jamie Dimon, clarified the “purpose of a corporation” back in August. It should be a moment for CEOs, including Dimon, to show they’re serious about the commitments they made, and for investors to hold them to account. But no.
The Roundtable says it represents corporate leaders responsible for $7 trillion of combined sales. It devised a useful definition of business purpose comprising five goals. To paraphrase, these were: deliver value to customers; pay staff fairly and invest in them; deal ethically with suppliers; support the community (including the environment); and make money.