Productivity surplus, traditional performance indicators and Corporate Social Responsibility

The objective of maximizing the economic results of companies has always been viewed as an interpretative paradigm – profit maximization – in management and economic studies, as well as in economic sciences in general.This paradigm derives from the postulate that the economic agents – in particular the holders of risk capital, who are the fundamental economic agents – try, through their rational behaviour, to maintain their invested capital intact and to gain the maximum profit.This fact has been recognized by Gino Zappa – who views the firm as a means for achieving the goals of the economic agents who own the firm: “In our economic system [...], business production is carried out mainly to satisfy the needs of its economic agents.” (1956: 217, my own translation) – as well as by Pietro Onida, who sees profit as the main goal of economic business organizations: “The search for profit is natural and cannot be questioned as long as we desire market production to be carried out by firms we have been examining [private companies]. The economic-social function of production is performed by these firms only because they can provide an appropriate profit.” (1956: 310, author’s translation).