**5.3 Stakeholders: The creators of economic value**

One lesson that business leaders were reminded of during 2020 is that all stakeholders matter. Many hospitality firms, restaurants and other entertainment companies went bankrupt as their customers stopped giving them money. Employees were classified as "essential" if their work was immediately required for the short-term

execution of the company's business. And the importance of efficient supply chains came into full view as we all worried that we may never have another opportunity to buy toilet paper, hand sanitizer or disinfectant. Amazon's stock price increased by 117% during 2020. Can we infer that this means Amazon's stockholders benefited more than Amazon's customers, employees or suppliers? No, we cannot. What would have happened to these non-shareholder stakeholders if Amazon had not done its job throughout the year? Where would customers have gotten our toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfectant? The 117% stock price appreciate was the result of Amazon creating economic value for all stakeholders, not just the measure of creating financial value for shareholders. For Amazon, and many other companies, embracing new stakeholders was the key to their ability to survive and thrive and 2020.

In the context of CSR or CSO, maximizing profits is only possible if companies satisfy the values and needs of their stakeholders. Society's values represent the economic decisions that individuals make based on what they value, on what is important to them. Government institutions are responsible for taking care of the most basic of these values; but governments can be slow, inefficient and too easily influenced [18]. During 2020, the role that businesses served in helping individuals satisfy their values and needs became ever more important. Companies in certain industries, such as travel and hospitality, were devastated by the pandemic and related restrictions. Others that were able to satisfy our most basic values (like Amazon), our needs (like Zoom) and our wants (Etsy) created enormous amounts of financial value – because they created enormous amounts of value for individual people. Amazon's stock price rose 117% during 2020; Zoom's stock price rose 396% during 2020; Etsy's stock price rose 302% during 2020. Are these examples of companies capitalizing on short-term social opportunities created by the pandemic? Perhaps. But, while they aren't perfect, stock prices should be forward-looking. Stock prices should not reflect what any company was able to do in the past, but rather they should reflect what the companies are expected to do in the future. Stock prices will always ignore sunk costs; business leaders need to do the same.
