Case 3.2: Transforming the Soul of Business balance: a thriving corporate life, self-fulfillment, and meaningful personal relationships." Many other Darlington Foods is an integrated wholesaler and retailer of high-quality food products. It provides companies that sell socially conscious goods and services will be at the conference. It promises sessions gourmet foods to supermarket chains and specialty stores in the United States and Europe under the that address topics such as extraordinary customer service, incentives that appeal to employees' hearts, well-known brand names of "Fuller Flavor," "Good-For-You," and "Healthy Delite." Partly through worker empowerment, caring for the plight of the global poor, fostering creativity through empathy, acquisition, its sales have more than doubled in the past 10 years, but profits have been disappointing. employee belonging and well-being, collaborative communication, engaging the human spirit in the The founder of the company and the former CFO (chief financial officer) were forced to resign because workforce through love, and giving back to the community. of the company's poor performance (Table 3.1). Siegel tells you that he does not know what to think. A liberal Democrat, a successful entrepreneur, and philanthropist, he also was known as a hard-driving executive when he owned his own business. He Table 3.1 Darlington Foods: Performance feels that people should keep their priorities straight: "When in the office, use your head-leave your heart at home ." He tells you that this always has been his motto and communicates that to you in no uncertain terms. From his perspective, these ideas of O'Brien are a "no-go." They are "dead on arrival." Year Sales Operating Income Net Loss But Siegel is unsure how other members of the executive team stand. He tells you that O'Brien is a "flake." What he is trying is inconsistent with the shareholder interests Siegel must protect. He 2015 28.380 1,554 comments that O'Brien is "too dogmatic, fixed in his ways .. . bright, but arrogant and self-righteous," 1,043 qualities he detests. A "fanatic"-"no telling how far he might go," Siegel proclaims. You are not quite certain where your allegiances lie, for while you like Siegel, you have been charmed as well by O'Brien , 2016 35,595 6,351 10,353 who has been very supportive of your work. Siegel reads an article about how several socially conscious businesses have not lived up to their ideals. 2017 49.020 They deserted their vaunted pay scales in which top management could not earn much more than wage 4,155 6,975 earners. They took their factories from inner-city locations and shipped jobs to low-wage countries. They sullied the environment and had quality control problems, which led to the selling of contaminated Note: All values are in thousands of dollars. products. At the same time, they proclaimed that they were a force of good, working for the future of The top management team now consists of company president and CEO Robert Dennis, 49, an the planet, and committed to an enlightened capitalism in order to improve society. Outraged by the engineering graduate with a PhD in educational administration from the University of Kansas; executive hypocrisy of these firms, Siegel sends the article to the top management team at Darlington. vice president Carl Martin, 47, who attended the University of Utah and worked for the Albertson and Meanwhile, O'Brien invites a guest to your executive committee meeting, Laura Scher, a former Super Value grocery chains; retail sales vice president Kevin J. O'Brien, 31, a graduate of the Harvard classmate of his, a person he believes "represents the best of the new capitalism." Scher graduated near Business School; and CFO Benson Siegel, 59, a certified public accountant from the University of the top of her MBA class but did not choose the path to easy and quick riches. She refused a lucrative California, Berkeley, who used to run his own business. As the operations and marketing director of the Wall Street offer and created her own company, Working Assets Funding Service, the purpose of which firm, you are the newest member of the executive team. You have an MBA from the University of is "to do well by doing good." The company offers a donation-linked credit card and charity- connected Minnesota Carlson School and formerly worked for the Target Company. long-distance phone service that allows people to donate to causes. Inc. magazine named the company Before the monthly executive team meeting, O'Brien has proposed to send five senior employees to a one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. O'Brien tells you that the conference on "Transforming the Soul of Business: Profit, Competition, and Conscience on the New "soul" of your company is at stake. Frontier," which would be held in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, next winter. This proposal is part of The ongoing conflict between Siegel and O'Brien makes you very nervous. Their emotions are running O'Brien's ongoing effort to make the company more socially responsible. O'Brien feels deeply that the way too high. Is there some way to intervene? You are afraid your company is going to collapse because key to restoring Darlington's profitability is to align it with upscale consumers that appreciate a socially of the conflict between two people you essentially like and respect. You vaguely recall an ethical conscious profile. He is fond of saying, "This company should be governed by a conscience. It should not framework you learned to use in a class at the Carlson School. It was called "Weighing the Reasons," or be a slave to short-term profits." The total cost of sending the five employees to Hilton Head will be something like that. Would now be the time to invoke it, but how and to what end? more than $30,000. Benson Siegel, whose office is right next door to yours, has been looking over the conference brochure. On the title page, it advertises "Innovative Techniques for Making a Profit While Making a Difference" and "How to Make Your Business a Positive Agent for Social Change." The mission of the conference sponsor, the National Institute for a New Corporate Vision, is "to foster an evolution that encourages