"Corporate Responsibility Meets the Digital Economy" by Leena Lankoski and N. Craig Smith
September 15, 2025: Strategy & Innovation Article 1
💡 Big Idea
The rise of digital platforms, algorithms, and AI is reshaping corporate responsibility, forcing leaders to revisit three fundamental questions: responsible for what, toward whom, and by whom.
📖 Summary
Why this matters now: Traditional responsibility models assumed clear products, markets, and stakeholders. In the digital economy, those boundaries blur.
Responsible for what: Data privacy, algorithmic fairness, misinformation, and environmental impacts of digital infrastructure now sit alongside traditional concerns.
Responsible toward whom: Beyond customers and shareholders, responsibilities extend to users, gig workers, communities, and even society at large affected by platform dynamics.
Responsible by whom: The question of “responsible by whom” has grown more complex in the digital economy. Responsibility no longer sits solely with corporate executives; it now includes the influence of algorithms that make decisions, platform participants whose actions shape outcomes, and autonomous systems that operate without direct human control.
Key challenge: Conventional frameworks (like shareholder primacy or stakeholder theory) are insufficient for the fast-moving, distributed digital economy.
🎯 Why It Matters
This article is a reminder that strategic decisions now carry digital-era responsibilities. Leaders must account for algorithmic impacts, anticipate claims from new stakeholders, and integrate responsibility into strategy itself. Responsible leadership in the digital economy is core to sustaining trust, legitimacy, and long-term advantage.