Hello Everyone,
In this brief post, I want to share a documentary I recently came across on Netflix called “Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy.” After watching it, I found it to be highly relevant to this course, as it explores the implications of directors’ duties to the corporation and how it affects its operations. It also touches on concepts we’ve previously encountered in the works of Professor Joel Bakan, such as the shortcomings of the corporate structure and the need for increased government action in regulating corporate behaviour.
Hope you will enjoy watching it as much as I did 🙂
Hi Dana, thanks for this – such fascinating stuff! I was particularly struck by Maren Costa’s recount of her experience at Amazon during its initial stages of growth…particularly, it reminded me of Prof Festinger’s idea that “Adventuring Together Forever” is the reason why corporations exist. Maren shared that she had initially planned to stay at Amazon for merely 2 two years, but found it “surprisingly exciting,” saying it was fast-paced and had a high tolerance for risk. She even said that her work there felt like inventing, wherein as soon as she had an idea, she was given a team and money, and told to go for it. The team at Amazon would ask each other questions like: “If the system was magic, what would the system do?”
From all this, “adventure” aspect of “adventuring together forever” jumped out to me so strongly, and gives further weight to the idea of invention and creativity as a driving force for the corporation.