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Messages from "Economic Trend", May 2006

Our Duty as a Public Entity

Yoichi Morishita
Chairman of the Board of Councillors, Nippon Keidanren
Chairman of the Board, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

A company is a public entity of society. People have long been emphasizing this point. The reason that a company is regarded as a public entity is that every activity of a company is closely linked to society. However, the fact is that I have often seen examples where the "public" disappears and the "private" becomes prominent. That's why I would now like to reconfirm the meaning of a public entity.

The starting point in this consideration is the way in which we look at the managerial resources necessary for business. Managerial resources, typified as people, materials, and money, are all the property of society, and a company is in the position of having received them in trust. We should not regard land and buildings, not to mention people and assets, as personal possessions, even though by law we are allowed to possess them. I believe that this is the way we should think.

A corporation should make the best use of its managerial resources in doing its business, and contribute to the development of society by serving customers with products and services. What is required of us in this process is nothing other than obtaining "trust and empathy from society" as described in the Keidanren Corporate Behavior Charter. We need a sense of ethics and conscience which goes beyond laws and rules, as well as a caring sensitivity toward different cultures and customs. If such a spirit prevails all around the world, it will bring forth trust and empathy.

Our duty as a public entity is to conduct business based on this understanding and, let me say once more, to contribute to the prosperity of society.

Only by making such a contribution, do companies receive profit as their just reward. In other words, the goal is to make a contribution, and profit is merely the reward. As we had responsibility as a public entity, we have to keep this way of thinking about profit firmly in mind.

So let us recognize our responsibility as a public entity. By doing this, we will naturally be filled with a sense of mission. It will nurture in us a strong sense of mission to meet the expectations of society, which has entrusted us with such precious resources. If we have this sense of mission, we will never succumb when tempted by the "private". And both managers and employees will become strong. I really believe this.


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