The Corporation

Kline helps revive a Pfizer pharmaceutical factory in Brooklyn, New York, then improves safety at the local subway station, starts a school for neighborhood and employee children, and develops middle-class housing for the blighted area. Kline’s efforts exemplify the often high-minded motives of corporate officers who must struggle against their companies’ conflicted motives and mixed messages in order to help local communities. Pfizer’s outreach work under Kline has mixed results.  

Defying oil industry convention and legal precedents, British Petroleum’s Browne declares that there is more to a corporation than profitseeking and that environmental concerns are just as important. Other energy firms resist his green agenda, but soon all have adopted it. Bakan argues that Browne is the only officer among these companies who is genuinely concerned about environmental stewardship and that the big corporations go along with him merely because it makes them look good, which in turn can help their bottom lines, the number one concern of corporations. In fact, even BP itself, under Browne’s leadership, resists calls to cut back on its Alaskan operations, which may damage a local native nation’s well-being, insisting that no harm will befall them.