Alternative Views of Big Business Goals and Purposes

Abstract

Instead of profit maximization as a single goal of big business, organization-theory, game-theory, and behavioral- science views indicate that the objectives of modern enterprise are plural and complex. Organization theory emphasizes the coalition character of big business, suggesting that with many participants comes variety in goals. Games in theory and in experiment reveal that players often carry to circumstances of rivalry and bargaining ideas of fairness and mutual restraint. The normative aspects of business affairs and changing role expectations concerning big business make available a be havioral basis for discussion of nonprofit goals. These views of business goals offer analytical frameworks by which social responsibility and ethics can be studied. Such behavior thus is not an odd mutation in a world of profit maximization. It reflects the coalition dimension of big business and the social environment in which decisions are made. To complicate things, these models also indicate the importance of profit, efficiency, and innovation goals in business, confronting par ticipants in big business and the people of the United States with dilemmas of choice. These choices are serious, for with them comes simultaneous impact upon the institutional ar rangements of the American economy.