ABSTRACT
Companies are greatly empowered. They control most of the resources of economic creativity: science and technology, finance, organisational, managerial and business skills, networks of relationships, influence, information and communication. Enterprise being the ultimate agent of economic and technical creativity, it was long believed that its action automatically served the common good through the virtues of the market and its famous 'invisible hand'. This belief is clearly in question. Globalisation, the acceleration of techno-science and the lack of global regulation give the economic system unprecedented autonomy and empowerment. It operates according to its own criteria: profitability, competitiveness, and the race to win market share. Global finance today comprises a set of markets operating continuously at a global level. Their rules of balance and profitability are imposed on all economic activity. These are markets that constantly evaluate the global economy.
