Can standard corporations recognize & implement the 'human side' of management?

No, their employees are always just cogs in the machine

The standard corporation is owned by a large number of shareholders with no personal connection to the corporation and no interest in anything other than profiting from their shares. Because of this arrangement, it is inevitable that profit is the only value that counts in corporate management. If management adopts a 'touchy-feely' approach it can only be justified if this is found to increase profits, and it would do nothing to prevent their being discarded as soon as it becomes profitable to do so. A genuine recognition of the 'human side' of management would be a recognition that humans are ends in themselves, not a means to an end. But in a standard corporate structure, employees are ineviteably just a means for making profit.

• By Nicolas Holzapfel
• Oct. 10, 2009