Business in times of crisis

Government bailouts of corporate sectors in the COVID-19 crisis are part of a tripartite arrangement between government, business and institutional investors. Business should respond to the changing preferences of customers, employees and societies by identifying value propositions that justify the provision of risk capital by institutional investors. Critical to this is the determination and implementation of corporate purposes by owners and board directors that focus on inter-generational horizons. Family owners are particularly well placed to do this, but institutional investors need to make it part of their stewardship function as well. Measurement is key and significant reforms are required in the areas of accounting, valuation and reporting. Consistent with these observations, companies that had strong environmental, social and governance records performed better during the initial stages of the crisis, as did family owned firms and those that avoided high levels of leverage prior to the crisis.

Re-siting corporate responsibility

The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) approach is championed as a way to deliver both corporate profits and poverty reduction. This article explores how “the poor” are repurposed as the instruments of ethical capitalism through the archetypal BOP model—Avon Cosmetics. A harbinger of “compassionate capitalism,” Avon has long stylized its entrepreneurial opportunity as a channel to a transcendent realm of self-actualization and social transformation. The company pursues this vision through a set of discourses and calculative practices that aim to produce industrious, self-disciplined, and empowered “entrepreneurs.” However, while BOP systems like Avon may provide a viable income stream for “poor” women, the practices through which women are “converted” into enterprising subjects can confound their intended “empowerment” effects. The article suggests that while targeting the “bottom of the pyramid” may elide the distinction between the maximization of profit and the imperatives of sustainable development, devolving corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the “entrepreneurial poor” raises questions about the implications of “making poverty business.”