How CEOs Can Fix Capitalism

The financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession caused a crisis of public confidence in business and American-style capitalism, with its focus on maximizing shareholder value. Corporate leaders understood that reform was needed and that they needed to commit themselves to the dual goal of producing benefits for society and their firms’ bottom lines—to creating “shared value.” But the specific actions they could take to bring about this change were less clear.

This ebook offers some of the freshest thinking today on practical measures that businesses can implement to create shared value. Originally published in an online forum hosted by Harvard Business Review, it offers valuable advice about how CEOs, other senior executives, and boards of directors can work together to engage stakeholders in new ways, change their companies’ values, build healthier relationships with investors, revamp incentive systems to create long-term value, and develop stronger succession plans.

The authors of this collection of short articles include current or former CEOs, such as Howard Schultz of Starbucks and Dominic Barton of McKinsey & Company, and an array of prominent academics and other thought leaders, including Roger Martin of the University of Toronto, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford, and Alfred Rappaport of Northwestern.

Its editors are Raymond Gilmartin, the former CEO of Merck and, until recently, an adjunct professor at Harvard Business School, and Steve Prokesch, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review who previously worked at the New York Times and BusinessWeek magazine. In their introduction, they offer five specific recommendations on how CEOs can restore public faith in capitalism.

HBR Singles provide brief yet potent business ideas, in digital form, for today's thinking professional.