Economy of Mutuality: Equipping the Executive Mindset for Sustainable Business

Abstract

Economy of mutuality provides a higher-order frame of reference for understanding what business is for and the values it presupposes and creates. This chapter equips executives and managers with a broadened perspective on business, encompassing not just market economy, but social enterprise and social economy. A spectrum of archetypes of business enterprise are considered in light of higher ends of economic life. The highest end-state of business encompassing all such archetypes, it is argued, is that of reciprocity and integral human development. The chapter concludes that, compared to market economy per se, economy of mutuality provides business executives and managers a more comprehensive conceptual framework for undertaking challenges of financial and social sustainability.