Corporations and Global Public Authority

I personally found this week's lecture to be the most interesting so far because I have been working for a giant global corporation for about three years now, Compass Group. It took me some time to get high up enough to see how the company was internally structured, but once my eyes were opened to the corporate side of business I was a little shocked. Questions of global interaction, oversight and governance came to mind, and this week Professor Jackson brought about those very same questions. Just how much autonomy should be allotted to global corporations? Who can regulate it?

The sheer size of Compass Group is daunting and it only continues to grow as the corporation acquires more and more companies... In fact the company is so big it could be considered a multilateral institution. They even call their business management strategy a "governance framework," which includes an outline of "visions and values."

I'm sure Compass Group is not the only company out there to have this kind of wording within their business strategy and overall global commitment. This could be an interesting transition into another type of global actor that has nearly just as much power as a state actor. The issue here is that without having the public responsibility of a state, a global corporation could drive the action on the world stage an undesired direction. Not all global businesses will include socially responsible values in their business standards. The effects can only be speculative, but it is an interesting question. Professor Jackson asked if corporations should be held more accountable, and I think they should. Yet who could actually hold them accountable?

I think its up to the states to maintain their sovereignty as a whole over the corporations. They could create standards through the WTO, or some similar multilateral institution, that each international business must obtain before operating in each member country. Then there are agreed upon requirements in all countries and states are still governing the world while corporations are being held socially responsible. Yet, all is easier said than done and this outcome is not likely, so the question still remains unanswered.