197 Towards an evidence-based public purpose.

In order to integrate these approaches, I propose to define durable success (bestendig succes) of the corporation and its enterprise primarily in terms of an evidence-based public purpose, with respect to both the need for profitable value creation for all partners of the corporation as well as the needs and limits of its larger environment. The underlying consensus of all perspectives seems to be that corporations are constituted to serve the needs of their partners, society and their larger environment. Building on the dominant influence of the institutional perspective in Dutch corporate law, the legal adoption of an individual evidence-based public purpose may be a valuable approach towards operationalizing this general definition of success. Such a specific public purpose adopted by a corporation should be both compliant with the interests of society and all stakeholders as well as being grounded in the specific factual circumstances in which a corporate enterprise operates. The process of adopting and reviewing a specific corporate purpose therefore requires a legal approach involving all stakeholders, potentially also non-strategic societal stakeholders, and a form of scientific evaluation capable of assessing the specific needs and limits of its larger environment.

In the pursuit of achieving such a corporate purpose, boards should be expected to operate within the boundary conditions provided by their market environment as well as the larger social and ecological ecosystems in which their enterprise is embedded.1 As corporations operate in a global competitive market environment, boards are required to pursue a strategy that is able to deliver profitable and efficient long-term value creation for their partners. Without the prospect of any profit, a corporation is unlikely to succeed in the long term. Meanwhile, the factual embeddedness of the corporate enterprise in its larger social and ecological environment requires boards to respect the needs and limits that are intrinsic in the function of their enterprise in their environment. Without a healthy ecosystem capable of delivering the services on which the enterprise depends, a corporation is equally unable to succeed in the long term. In sum, I articulate the following recommendation for overcoming the first issue identified in Dutch corporate law: