Business must take the lead in bringing order to cyberspace. Business must take the lead in ensuring that technology does not split the world into haves and have nots. But global business is conspicuously absent from the roster of non-governmental organizations that take the lead in filling the leadership void left by the public sector. Yet, if you took the combined resources of only the multinational companies in the Caux Round Table, you would dwarf the resources and clout of even the largest and best financed nonbusiness NGOs. It's true that individual companies and groups of companies are attacking global problems, but the approach has been largely ad hoc and random.
Training is provided here, development assistance there.
It could act in alliance with national governments and multigovernmental organizations, national and international business groups, international funding agencies, and other NGOs. But, as I emphasized at the beginning of my talk, the business NGO should not regard action by any of these groups as a prerequisite for taking action itself. Nor should it depend on achieving consensus among these groups. The business leaders represented in the Caux Roundtable are no strangers to taking personal responsibility for the economic success of their companies and the well-being of their stakeholders and their communities. They just have to enlarge their stakeholder population and expand their concept of community to include the entire globe .