The Duty of Societal Responsibility and Learning Anxiety

In previous publications I have proposed to introduce a duty of societal responsibility of the board of a corporation, to correct the amorality of corporate reality that results from the shareholder primacy doctrine first formulated by Milton Friedman. The EU Commission proposes in a similar way to clarify that the duty of care of directors is to include that directors take into account the consequences of their decisions for sustainability matters, including human rights, climate change and environment (2022 proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence directive). Such proposals meet with heavy resistance from the business community. This resistance at least in part is due to the phenomenon of learning anxiety as developed by Edgar Schein. I offer some suggestions to overcome this anxiety.