Will we see Muskianity, Bezlam and Zuckerism save Mankind?
By Hans Hassle, guided by Prof. Dr. Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo.
The development of global brands and their leaders, generates an unrealistic trust for corporations taking responsibility for creating a sustainable future — among students, consumers and decision makers. Expectations on who will guide us into the future is rapidly shifting from democratically chosen politicians towards share holder controlled entrepreneurs. After launching Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship — is the capitalistic market economy on the move towards mythical belief systems that could be described as Corporate Religions?
In a series of articles, we will demonstrate how the novel phenomenon of charismatic, sometimes worshiped leaders of multinational companies, and their followers being employees, consumers, ”fans” and other stakeholders, influence public conception and politics; this ”congregation” affects consumer behavior, consumer community-building, employees loyalty-bindings, and public conception of companies in general.
If this provoking hypothetical question (Is the capitalistic market economy on the move towards belief systems that could be described as Corporate Religions?) is anywhere even near to be relevant, the future development must definitely affect corporate governance models and legislation of business’; simply because of their new context and role in society. Maximizing profit is no longer the reason for a company to exist. Maximizing power is.
To take it even further: Are we experiencing a historic and long lasting paradigm shift creating societal belief systems and leadership ideologies based on admiration of wealth and power only, instead of previous more existential ones based on (at least some) virtue and wisdom? Are we even seeing the emergence of new world religions? Or, are we just moving towards a crucial challenge to representative democracy as we know it?
We want to provoke these extreme thoughts (in time) for a moral discussion in an economic context.
BRANDING AS RELIGION
In twenty-five years from now; who owns our reality, our daily life, and what do they do with that ownership? More and more of our basic needs are put into private interests. Health care, education, transport, and energy. Since this is rapidly happening in the real world, are you sure there could never be an extreme version of this development in the virtual world, the so called metaverse? In case you don’t know, meta means beyond. You definitely know about the Universe. So beyond this universe — could it happen; new prophets, gurus and even a Messiah, reaching out with divine promises aimed at your grand-children from within an alternative reality, privately owned and controlled?
If you instictively answer “absolutely no way”, please think again, and let’s discuss from a perspective using History of Ideas.
A corporation depends totally on its brand. A brand depends totally on its legitimacy. If Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google wouldn’t be considered by the market as trustworthy, they would seize to exist. Just like that. No matter how big and mighty they are— if the market (users/consumers, shareholders, investors) no longer believe in what they say and do… They are gone.
Or, that’s the way it always used to be. The market ruled. But now, what happens if “larger than life” multinationals create an indestructible societal dependency on themselves; like owning the digital infrastructure we all depend on, or owning our hope for the future? What would happen if we all started hating them? Would we depend on them anyway? I mean, how many of you use Facebook, and how many love Meta? (Oh, you cancelled you Facebook account, and now you use..? Owned by..?)
Will we see corporations able to step out of the competitive market that challenged them before and become Corporate Emperors? Gods?
BRANDING STRATEGY HISTORY, GROSSLY SIMPLIFIED
If brands are built on legitimacy purely; what creates and upholds legitimacy? Well, that depends on the times. Grossly simplified, let us describe the development of brand legitimacy in modern times.
SUPPLY THE DEMAND
After World War II a Legitimate Brand was a company that efficiently could deliver goods in time to supply the huge demand. As simple as that. Can you deliver, and on time, yes or no?
Soon, many companies could. Their goods were similar, so they needed to differentiate from one another to gain more legitimacy, and win more market shares.
QUALITY
During the 50’s and 60’s Quality became the leading ideology to create such a market position. Just logical if you think about it: We supply the demand, we deliver in time, and you get a product that lasts longer. Higher price, sometimes yes, but calculate on the life-time-cost… Using this strategy, especially Swedish companies were successful, and Swedish Quality became an axiom that many used as a benchmark. Still do.
ECO
Already during the mid 70’s consumers started to learn about the environmental effects caused by booming industrial production. Soon, the expectations from consumers with a bad conscience created a new possibility for brands to differentiate: To be eco-friendly.
During the 80’s and 90’s it became a crucial strategic asset to have a clear answer to the question How do you manufacture? Less resources became more legitimacy, but at the same time expectations grew among consumers, and employees. It was easier for the well educated consumer, employee and media to question and investigate all these eco-friendly brand promises. Brands that were exposed with exaggeration or lies were accused of green washing and often lost substantial value on the market.
VALUES
Following the question How?, in the mid 90’s, when most brands had a sufficient answer, clear sighted brand experts could define a new modern way of positioning, namely by answering the question Why do we do business?. Corporate values and ethics became high fashion. Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility saw daylight, and Going well by Doing Good became a trendy strategy.
(Just a side note: If you reflect on this — does the development of brand legitimacy follow the logic of a maturing individual?
- During childhood you are defined of what you do.
- Teenage-time of how you do it.
- Early adult years you start to reflect on the meaning of life, so why you do things will come in focus.
- Then you choose your values, what you believe to be right.)
PURPOSE
Today, most clear-sighted corporate boards and managers understand that you can no longer say: We’re just in it for the money. You need to provide a societal purpose. A majority of companies listed on Fortune 500 express a clear societal purpose. Some are more serious than others.
SO, WHY NOT RELIGION?
To conclude, brand legitimacy moving from Supply to Quality to Eco to Values to Purpose towards Mythology and Religion, might just be the next logical step to take.
There is little or nothing written on this subject from an academic perspective, at least based on our initial secondary data search. Most material on Corporate Religion seems to come from a non-academic branding perspective. And, it actually follows the criticism being formulated since the early 90s towards the development of Corporate Citizenship and CSR functioning only as a shield from the real function of the share-holding institutions, namely maximizing profit.
We can see corporations developing their own belief system, mythology, symbols, rituals, moral precepts and ”religious specialists” or missionaries being the charismatic CEO or entrepreneur. To express the brand and let others experience the brand, the corporation builds impactful headquarters, impressive factories and whole areas filled with monumental things that express what they stand for.
Sorry — let’s go back to square one.
RELIGION… WHAT?
Let’s use the (excerpt) wiki-version to make it as folksy as possible:
“Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements… that will provide norms and power for the rest of life.”
SOCIAL-CULTURAL SYSTEM
No one can argue: Corporations of today are using the raising moral expectations from consumers, employees and the surrounding society to broaden the perspective on the company (and of companies as such) from being mainly an economic institution that provides profit for the shareholders, towards a more stakeholder-driven position where social responsibility and environmental objectives are merged with strictly financial ones.
“Unilever has set out to make sustainable living commonplace by improving the health of the planet, improving people’s health, confidence and wellbeing, and contributing to a fairer and more socially inclusive world.” / Unilever AN
DESIGNATED BEHAVIORS AND PRACTICES
This type of mythical global brand development is built on associating emotions that creates a feeling among consumers, of being part of something bigger than just a commercial transaction or relation.
“… a future where everyone can be present with each other, create new opportunities and experience new things. It is a future that is beyond any one company and that will be made by all of us. If this is the future you want to see, I hope you’ll join us. The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.” / Mark Zuckerberg
PROPHECIES
Advanced, strategic storytelling is used as a tool to create mythologies around brands and leading corporate individuals. And, leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos continues to ”save the world” through offering us all what we dream of; a new planet to live on, eternal life, endless communication, and a new universe to live in.
“I believe we will reach a point around 2029 when medical technologies will add one additional year every year to your life expectancy. By 2045 humans will be able to live forever”. / Ray Kurzweil, Google’s Director of Engineer
ETHICS
In August 2019, Business Roundtable officially redefined the Purpose of a Corporation to Promote ‘An Economy That Serves All Americans’. What does this mean? Are they willing to govern their companies in the same transparent way as expected from any other institution given this kind of role in society? And most important of all — do they really mean to include societal stakeholders in the decision making, do they democratize themselves? Or, is the whole discussion just following a logical step of business brand development where the eternal fight is to create higher and higher productivity and legitimacy? And, if so, can we find logical but alternative conclusions and solutions that should follow such a development regarding corporate governance and legislation?
“Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.” / b-corporation.net
SUPERNATURAL
Promises of upgraded personal abilities, or even eternal life, boundless possibilities to communicate, space travel or living on other planets is given by mythical individuals performing these miracles, almost as if they would possess super natural powers.
“In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up.” … “In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine … as well as completely new experiences…” / Mark Zuckerberg
“And you could have a recreational one [space colony] that keeps zero G so you can go flying with your own wings…” / Jeff Bezos
“Two of the company’s applications will aim to restore vision, even for people who were born blind, and a third application will focus on the motor cortex, restoring full body functionality for people with severed spinal cords. We’re confident there are no physical limitations to restoring full body functionality.” / Elon Musk
SPIRITUAL
The corporation as an institution is moving towards becoming like congregation, building its own churches or temples. Look at the HQ-designs of the Big Four, and how their production units around the world look like. You can visit the small town of Katrineholm in Sweden, and you will see the identical temple of Amazon as in Västerås (another small town in Sweden); absolutely no logo, no info signs, absolutely nothing informing a visitor of who “lives” here. Everyone know anyway. It’s like a Christian Church not explaining why you came. You know already. Spiritual Mythology at its best.
We checked six points out of six. Still, of course we didn’t prove anything at all. Still just provoking your thoughts.
CORPORATE RELIGION RESEARCH PROJECT
All the visions described above are amazing, simply fantastic. Super creative, brilliant people, humans like all of us, inventing the future. What is the problem really? Maybe technology and smart entrepreneurs will solve all our challenges, and we can all live forever, go flying and live in space, on Mars or upload ourselves into a digital reality — who cares?
“And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.” / Prof. Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.
Well, there is no instruments within financial and corporate research to handle a change from purely materialistic logic into more value driven belief systems attracting and approaching ”believers” more than ”consumers” and ”employees”. Therefore we will try to merge History of Religions, History of Ideas and Economy in a discussion with corporate leaders, academics and consumers to find new theoretical models for corporate leadership. This work will be academic, and we are applying for research grants.
The questions we raise are:
- Are religion-like belief systems developing in the corporate world, paving the way for icon-like corporate leaders creating their own rules?
- Are we currently experiencing a paradigm shift that will create leaders / leadership and belief system based on materialistic indicators that could be described as Corporate Religion?
- Are we seeing the emergence of charismatic founders/leaders of new religious movements? Can CEOs be compared with spokes persons of religions?
Our theoretical approach is: Can we use the rise of world religions and ideologies and their background case as a meter to predict the development of Corporate belief on the same lines?
We will offer a new definition of Corporate Citizenship through the analytical perspective of Corporate Religion, and we claim to outline some warnings and risks for not moving towards a more inclusive capitalism.
In the following articles we will create a foundation for this discussion that is needed — a fundamental change in perspective on businesses total role in society and how legislation (i.e. offering tax reliefs to companies voluntarily including societal responsibility into their binding system of rules) and ethical foundation must be adapted to the modern role of a corporation.
Finally, we will present through examples alternative governance models and reward systems that can contribute to a sustainable and democratic development of the corporate role in society.
Time Magazine: “What we really need right now is not more cars, colonization dreams, and techno-kings, but a collective project to improve the lives of billions of people around the world while taking on the immediate challenges we face regardless of whether it generates corporate profits.” (https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions/)
Research Group: Executive Team Leader, Mr. Shrikant Ramakrishnan, Co-founder at Seeking the Obvious®/ PhD student Ben XU, Tongji University, Shanghai / PhD student Danwen JI, Tongji University, Shanghai / PhD student Miya Meng, Tongji University, Shanghai / PhD Kyulee Viviane Kim, Hongik University Sejong, Korea.
Advisory Board: Dr. Margaret M. Towle, Yakima River Partners LLC / Prof. Lou Yongqi, Tongji University Shanghai / Prof. Jan Staël von Holstein, visiting professor at Tongji University Shanghai / Dr. Cees de Bont, Loughborough University, UK / Patricia Angus JD., Columbia University, USA / Mr. Mats Hellström, former Swedish Minister of Trade, former Swedish Minister of Agriculture and former Swedish Ambassador to Germany / Mr. Mats Rönne, former Global Brand Director at Ericsson AB, Sweden / Mr. Per Östling, Transformation Facilitator at First to Know, Sweden / Dr. Cai Jun, Tsinghua University, Beijing / Prof. Hengyuan Zhu, Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this text reflects any personal opinions of members in the Research Group or Advisory Board.
