DO COMPANIES HAVE TO BE SELFISH TO BE COMPETITIVE IN THE MARKET? BUSINESS STRATEGY ON A VALUES-BASED APPROACH IN THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY
DO COMPANIES HAVE TO BE SELFISH TO BE COMPETITIVE IN THE MARKET? BUSINESS STRATEGY ON A VALUES-BASED APPROACH IN THE CIRCULAR ЕCONOMY

THE GERMAN MITTELSTAND

Author(s): Emin Akcaoglu
Subject(s): Economy, Business Economy / Management, Marketing / Advertising
Published by: Бургаски свободен университет
Keywords: Strategic management; business ethics; sustainability; corporate social responsibility; circular economy; Mittelstand; SMEs
Summary/Abstract: The world has been struggling with an economic crisis since 2007 in general. Next to the economic crisis based on diminishing growth andemployment, the world economy has also been facing nprecedentedenvironmental and social problems. The current state of the world economy isdirectly connected to the orthodox Neoclassical Economic Theory which hasbeen claiming that businesses are only profit making and all economic agentsincluding company owners and managers must be acting only for their veryown wealth maximisation. This is very well reflected in ‘the shareholders’wealth maximisation’ approach of the Anglo-American stock-market-basedeconomic system. Therefore, the Neoclassical Model provides its legitimacyto such actions caused environmental and social problems such as globalwarming and huge income discrepancies. However, recently new conceptssuch as ‘circular economy’ have also been introduced and widely accepted bysensible companies and governments. In addition, new discussions have alsogained a momentum in the public scene regarding ‘sustainability of business’. In this paper a simple conceptual framework is introduced to integratestrategic management, ethics or moral values with business sustainability inthe new circular economy with a special focus on the German SMEs sector (Mittelstand) to reflect the practical examples of sustainable and thicalapproaches to business. This is important and interesting since the Germaneconomy has been doing the best among other European countries in thecurrent economic crisis

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