Private Business, Public Battleground: The Case for Twenty-first Century Stakeholder Companies

Business can no longer operate in isolation from the world around it. Major companies are finding it increasingly difficult to pursue their private business on what often becomes a public battleground, and increasingly fruitful to properly involve and respond to the concerns of their stakeholders.

Private Business-Public Battleground brings together two men who could once easily have been opponents. Des Wilson is one of the UK's best-known citizen campaigners and former Chairman of Friends of the Earth; John Egan is former Chief Executive and 'saviour' of Jaguar, and later Chief Executive of BAA plc. Together they discuss the value of a stakeholder approach and show how it can help companies operating at the interface between private and public interest. They review recent cases and controversies, and draw on their experience at BAA to show how this approach can work in practice.