People around the world are waking up to the power of multinational corporations, and their own potential to influence the way companies use their power. The era is coming to an end when corporations could ignore the concerns of the public, and when they could exert pressure on governments to adopt policies exclusively for their private profit interests, in disregard for the issues that matter to the population.
Corporate influence must be democratized, and those companies that embrace this concept will reap the benefits of that leadership and responsiveness to their consumer constituencies. Companies that resist will lose their value in the market.
It is no longer about companies implementing internal policies that improve work conditions and practices; they are political entities, they write and lobby for legislation, they donate to political campaigns, they advise on foreign policy issues; they possess tremendous political power. That power needs to be used in a way that represents the interests of the population, not just the shareholders.