WHO is a company for? Not legally speaking, but philosophically? Some people say it belongs to the shareholders. Others to its employees.

Still others say a company exists for its customers' sake. What do you think?

Tomohiro Horibe, Saitama, Japan

A

A company is for its shareholders. They own it. They control it. That's the way it is, and the way it should be. Don't take our bluntness the wrong way. Your question is hardly a no-brainer. In fact, it's at the heart of an ongoing public policy debate about corporate ownership or, more broadly put, about 'voice'.

The voice debate is complex and contentious. In fact, we can hear the Political Correctness Police revving their engines right now. The reason is that so many activist groups want to make their case for a say in company policy.

Labour leaders, for instance, will tell you that businesses couldn't run without their people, yet they earn far less than executives. Shouldn't workers get a bigger piece of the action to correct that inequity? Elected officials will talk about a company's toll on local residents, with traffic, pollution or depressed housing values. Shouldn't the community get some form of reparations for damage done? Social activists will cite the responsibility of the strong and powerful to help the weak and less fortunate.

Shouldn't a company honour that moral code?

Yes, yes and yes . . . in principle. But the problem is that many cases for voice, even with their legitimate components, have hidden agendas beneath the advertised ones, and those often have very little to do with the reality of what a company does.

Union organisers routinely rail against companies, regardless of their actual labour practices, as part of a neverending campaign to increase their membership rosters, and thus their coffers. As for politicians, vilifying what appears to be a big, rich enemy can be a fast way to get both publicity and popular support, even if that big, rich enemy happens to be creating jobs and pouring tax receipts into the community.

Social activists often target companies to draw attention to and raise money for their causes by using what is probably the cheapest means out there. The media love a good shareholder-meeting fracas, even if it is only one or two professional protesters who own a few shares who happen to be generating all the sound and fury.

Given all the agendas swirling around them, companies can get stuck in a real mess if they start responding to the varied stakeholders who claim a piece of the company. That doesn't mean they shouldn't listen to these groups.

Companies live or die because of engaged employees and satisfied customers.

Obviously, both have to be heard.

Companies reside in communities and must act as any good neighbour would.

Finally, they are part of society and must accept the responsibilities of citizenship.

It just so happens that capitalism . . . with its shareholder owners . . . reinforces all that. Why? Because capitalism is based on the principle that shareholders want their companies to win; they want sustained profitability. And sustained profitability gives rise to the exact same outcomes we just mentioned: satisfied customers, engaged employees, thriving communities and healthy societies.

Now, capitalism's critics like to point out that some companies don't give a whit about capitalism's big principle. They argue that management wants maximum returns today . . . forget 10 years from now.

And so they squeeze the life out of their employees or destroy the environment (or commit any number of other social crimes) in order to get fat profits, fast. To compound matters, they say, many companies pay their executives ridiculous sums to deliver short-term results or, even worse, lousy performance. All in, critics contend, human greed is a mighty big flaw in the capitalist system.

Another increasingly prominent criticism of capitalism concerns the growing trend of shareholders who buy stock and flip it. It's said that this constituency, composed largely of investment funds of every stripe, couldn't care less about long-term growth and profitability.

Quick-hit investors, incidentally, don't just rile activists. Companies denounce them too; witness the current debate over whether there should be a defined holding period before voting rights are granted. A holding period may indeed quiet some criticism on this particular front, but there will always be agenda-driven groups who rail against capitalism.

Look, capitalism has its shortcomings.

But it also has the virtue that those same critics, with their hidden and advertised purposes, get their voices heard in the marketplace and (loud and clear) in the media. But voice is not ownership; it is influence. So ultimately it turns out that the legal and philosophical answers to your question are one and the same. A company exists to serve the people who elect the board of directors, which in turn picks the management that drives the company. It's for its owners.

Jack and Suzy Welch are the authors of the international best-seller Winning. They are eager to hear about your career dilemmas and challenges at work, and look forward to answering your questions in future columns.

You can email them questions at Winning@nytimes. com. Please include your name, occupation, city and country.