In 2019, BlackRock’s management and board publically fired
two executives in the Hong Kong office for breaching company rules on dating
subordinates. The firings demonstrated to employees that the company would
enforce its employee policies and sent the message that employees would be “free
to point out problems in the workplace.”[1]
This would not be so extraordinarily significant but for the fact that
BlackRock is the “world’s largest money manager with $7.4 trillion under
management,” which enables the company, through the funds it runs, to be “one
of the five largest shareholders in nearly every corporation in the S&P
500.”[2]
So BlackRock “can cast votes and pressure boardrooms to effect change.”[3]
The company would be hypocritical in using its power as a major stockholder to
get managements to have and enforce good workplace policies if the company were
not doing so itself. From the standpoint of self-regulatory capitalism in
society, BlackRock could make a significant contribution far beyond improving
workplace policies.
The full essay is at "CSR and Corporate Governance Reform."
[1]
Dawn Lim, Steven Russolillo, and Jing Yang, “At
BlackRock, Public Firings, Overseas Probe Send Message About Office Misbehavior,”
The Wall Street Journal, February 3,
2020.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.