What's a Company For?: A Problem in Business Ethics (or...when Socrates met Milton Friedman)

Is the job of a company director simply to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible for shareholders? Do businesses have obligations to employees, other stakeholders, and society as a whole? And, most pressingly of all, do they have any responsibility for the environment, for social inequality, and to sustain fair competition in a world dominated by mega-corporations?

In this book, Professor Alexander ('Sandy') Pepper considers the controversial subject of corporate purpose. Drawing on ideas from philosophy, economics, law, and management studies, he critically examines competing answers to the question 'What's a Company For?'. To help answer this, Pepper imagines the conversations that might take place if 20th-century economist Milton Friedman, who famously argued for the primacy of shareholders' interests, engaged in dialogue with Socrates. The Athenian philosopher proves a playful and provocative interlocutor for questions of how a company operates ethically when faced with 21st-century questions of responsibility towards people, society, and the planet.

Ultimately, through academic argument and creative philosophical dialogues, Pepper makes the case for responsible business. Building on Alasdair MacIntyre's virtue ethics, he argues that a company's purpose encompasses not just profit, but prosperity for all those who contribute to its work, particularly employees. It also has moral obligations to society in general.

This book is a concise, witty, and engaging exploration of these knotty debates, and an essential read for students, researchers and even company directors looking to understand the bigger picture.

Alexander ('Sandy') Pepper is Emeritus Professor of Management Practice at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he taught from 2008 to 2023. Prior to this he had a long career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he held various senior management positions, including as global leader of PwC's Human Resource Services practice from 2002 to 2006. He is an external member of the Board of Governors at the University of Portsmouth. Sandy's research and teaching interests include organisations and management theory, with a particular focus on the theory of the firm, corporate governance, and business ethics. He is the author of many academic articles and books, including The Economic Psychology of Incentives and Agency Theory & Executive Pay, published by Palgrave Macmillan, and If You're So Ethical Why Are You So Highly Paid?, which was published by LSE Press in 2022. In 2025 LSE Press launched an open access a book and case study collection entitled Navigating the 21st Century Business World: Case Studies in Management, which Sandy co-edited with Dr Dorottya Sallai. Sandy is one of the UK's recognised experts on executive pay, and his most recent article on this subject, "CEO pay in the United Kingdom, 1968-2022" is available on the Business History journal website and LSE Research Online on an open access basis at https: //eprints.lse.ac.uk/126504/.