Business Management

Business Roundtable promotes a thriving U.S. economy and expanded opportunities for all Americans through sound public policies.

The tricks to stakeholder management are to focus on goals, clarify the decision maker, and know when to escalate.

The Bid podcast dives into market topics with BlackRock investment experts. We explore how fixed income can help investors prepare for potential drawdowns.

Despite Mr. Fink’s insistence that companies benefit society, it’s worth noting he’s not playing down the importance of profits and, while it’s a subtle point, he believes that having social purpose is inextricably linked to a company’s ability to maintain its profits. On that score, Mr. Fink and Friedman aren’t that far apart. “It may well be in the long-run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government,” Friedman wrote in 1970, adding that this approach may make it easier to attract desirable employees along with “other worthwhile effects.” But he also added a dollop of reality to the debate. Noting “widespread aversion” to things like capitalism, profits and the “soulless corporation,” he wrote that social responsibility is “one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a byproduct of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest.”

In his 2018 annual letter to shareholders, Fink stated that other companies should be aware of their impact on society, however, anti-war organizations are discontent with Fink's statement,[41] because his company, BlackRock, is the largest investor in weapon manufacturers through its U.S. Aerospace and Defense ETF.[42] In September 2018, an activist with the U.S. non-profit organization Code Pink confronted Fink on stage at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit.[43]

The influential investment firm now counts environmental sustainability as a new standard for investing.

Firms are increasingly trying to make badly behaved bosses hand their earnings back

A large spotlight is shining on corporate actions these days, and all stakeholders have growing expectations. A board’s involvement in defining purpose helps meet those expectations.

Aladdin Climate is a workshop for building on top of BlackRock’s Aladdin, bringing together the tools you need to quickly build scalable solutions.

BlackRock has trillions invested in stock-market trackers that include some of the worst polluting companies in the world. So will BlackRock dump shares in these companies? "No, we're not saying that," Mr Fink says. "First of all none of it's our money. The entire pool of money that we manage, which at the present time is approximately $8.7tn, every dollar is somebody else's money."

Larry Fink, boss of the world's biggest money manager, says the pandemic could help in fighting a bigger crisis.

Learn more about BlackRock’s sustainability survey where we sought to better understand clients’ drivers and challenges to sustainable investing.

We offer tools, case studies & videos to educate and inspire change with the goal of improving the jobs and lives of employees while boosting performance.