In an interview with Harvard Business School’s Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society (BiGS), Leo Strine Jr., former Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, discusses how and if businesses can be good citizens.

Highlights:

1:17: Bridging partisan divides in businessPeople are entitled to their own opinions, this is a hallmark of our society. When businesses face challenges they cannot control, people will have disagreements. However, when it comes to being a good corporate citizen and proper business conduct, partisan issues tend to melt away and everyone can come to an agreement.
2:58: What can business leaders do to address societal issues? Businesses need to be run with integrity and in the right way. This means looking at how you treat your workers, consumers, and communities of operation because your biggest social impact is in these areas.
4:33: How are directors and CEOs missing the mark? As a director, you need to ask the hard questions and be able to answer: how does this company make money? You need to understand the people affected by how you make your money and there need to be systems in place to monitor the risk presented by the areas of the company that make the money and affect the most people.
5:46 An example, Imagine putting Dr.Fauci on the compliance committee at your pharmaceutical company. He might not be suitable for this position if you put the compliance function in the audit committee, Dr. Fauci may not feel comfortable as the core product safety might get lost. In this example, we have not actually looked at the role of the board and seated people in a way that ensures risk is being monitored in an appropriate way.
6:40: Advice for maximizing stakeholder value in the boardroom. You can consider stakeholders as long as there is a rational relationship to the best interest of stockholders, there’s no immediate duty to maximize stock price, and you cannot benefit stockholders by unlawful conduct. However, in reality, if you’re elected by stockholders, unless the stockholders support you doing so, you’re unlikely to get protection for stakeholders.
8:13: Driving change through BiGS. We must consider the power structure in which corporations operate and think across borders to come up with innovative ways to reshape that consensus so multinational corporate power is utilized in the best interest of everyone.

For more stories and Q&As on societal topics essential to business and the people working to resolve these issues, visit the BiGS knowledge hub: www.hbs.edu/bigs