Corporate Purpose: Fact or Fiction? Myth or Reality? The Honourable Merchant as the Historic Basis of Corporate Purpose

Especially since the financial market crisis, the call for responsible corporate management has
become louder. Citizens in many countries fear that existing control mechanisms might not be
enough to put a stop to financial gamblers in an ethics-void context in the future. To this extent, the
financial crisis revealed both societal and corporate deficiencies in the basic understanding of
responsible, sustainable, honourable and thus successful, corporate leadership.
The paper shows that Corporate Purpose and the principles of Honourable Merchants coincide and
come into play. The guiding principles assume that responsible behaviour enacted by those in
leadership position is the basis for sustainable economic success and social peace in society. While
much of this had been lost as social responsibility became more codified in law rather than driven by
practice and collective value, today we may be seeing a move back from legal doctrine to moral
suasion and collective value based action.