Issue #262
Not everyone shares in Boeing’s success
Taxpayers around Washington state are trying to understand Boeing’s recent announcement of layoffs, just months after the Legislature met in special session to grant $8.7 billion in tax preferences—the largest such deal in American history. Our relationship with Boeing has definitely changed. For decades, Boeing products excelled in the marketplace. The company prospered and the community shared in those gains. The old stakeholder concept has changed. Now, it’s one super-stakeholder, and an array of sub-stakeholders. The super-stakeholder dominates the relationship and repeatedly extracts gains from the other stakeholders. Today’s Boeing executives exercise dominant power to extract gains. That is their unique contribution to the success of the enterprise. Executives will maximize leverage, even at great risk to schedule, cost, and performance of their products. Their business model depends on compliance, leverage and concessions. Stan Sorscher, Everett Herald, 5-18-14.