Economic success and responsibility

By definition, a business pursues economic interests and goals. The media industry and Bertelsmann are no exception. A company can only live up to its responsibility to society if it is managed according to sustainable and economically sound principles. Growth and safeguarding the company’s continuity are the basis of our corporate responsibility. In this way, we can secure jobs and thereby contribute to prosperity in the countries and cities where we operate.

Economic responsibility is the basis

This purpose is also codified in the Bertelsmann Essentials: “We aspire to make a valuable contribution to society” – and it has a long tradition at Bertelsmann: it was included nearly word for word in our company’s constitution back in 1960.

Being commercially successful enables us to act on our responsibility to society; striving for profits is a crucial prerequisite. Only a company that is enduringly successful can make a contribution. Generating earnings and working profitably ensures continuity, creates jobs and allows us to be a reliable taxpayer.

Our business conduct follows the tenets of good corporate governance and is guided by ethical principles.

The common interests of society and business

At the same time, companies can only safeguard their commercial success if they feel obligated not only to serve their immediate stakeholders, but also to consider the concerns of the society as whole. This idea – that the interests of society and of business should not be thought of as mutually contradictory – was formulated more than 40 years ago by Reinhard Mohn: “Optimizing a company’s contribution to society doesn’t mean ignoring the interests of capital and labor – instead, we need to learn to channel all economic processes for the benefit of people.”

Investing in the future

Compared with publicly listed stock corporations, Bertelsmann distributes only a relatively small portion of its profits as dividends. Most of the dividends go to fund the work done by the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation. The lion’s share of profits therefore remains in the company, where it is available for investments – including investments in employees and their creative entrepreneurial ideas.