#2- Price: A corporation's primary responsibility

[ChicaRosa]

My contenders were A and D and I ended up choosing the wrong answer. Why is D correct and not A?


I thought it was A because Price argues that the company's primary responsibility is to their shareholders while Albrecht says that the company's primary responsibility should be to it's employees.

Is D correct because Price says that the shareholders take great risks for the company's investment while Albrecht says that the shareholders have diversified investment portfolios?

Thanks!

[Kristina Moen]

ChicaRosa,

Great question. You're on the right track. You correctly identified that Price believes a corporations primary responsibility is to shareholders, and Albrecht believes a corporation's primary responsibility is to employees.

Take a look at the wording of Answer Choice (A) again. Do you think Albrecht disagrees with that statement? Albrecht thinks a corporations primary responsibility is to its employees. But Albrecht could very well think that the company's second responsibility is to shareholders. We don't know! We only know what Albrecht thinks is the primary responsibility. For example, if I said "I spend the most money on rent," does that mean I spend no money on food, clothes, etc.?

Both Price and Albrecht are arguing about comparisons. Who does a company owe the MOST responsibility? (A) (B) and (E) are incorrect because Price and Albrecht could agree on issues of whether the company owes some responsibility to employees/shareholders and whether some employees/shareholders rely on the company for their livelihood or welfare. Answer Choice (D) is correct because Price would agree with that statement, while Albrecht would disagree. Answer Choice (C) is out of scope.

[ErikaChavana18]

Hello,

I was between answer choice A and D, but ultimately went with A because of the strong language in choice D. Choice D said that "corporation’s shareholders have more at stake than anyone else does", this statement felt too overpowering to be correct, so I went with A.

I used the agree/disagree test on this question and A seemed to be correct. Price stated that "corporation’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders", so he would agree and Albrecht disagrees because he stated that "the corporation’s primary responsibility should be to them [employees]" . I'm overall confused on how I went wrong with this question.

[Robert Carroll]

Erika,

The strong language in answer choice (D) is fine - Price says "they take the greatest risks." So Price definitely agrees that the shareholders have the most at stake of everyone. Albrecht disagrees with that, thinking employees at least have more at stake.

Albrecht gives no opinion about whether corporations have a responsibility to shareholders. Albrecht is certainly trying to show that any responsibility they have is outweighed by the responsibility to employees, but that's compatible with Albrecht thinking there is also a lesser responsibility to shareholders. In order to get the result you got, Albrecht would have to agree with the following statement: "Corporations have no responsibility to their shareholders." That's clearly not something Albrecht says or implies.

Robert Carroll