A causal claim by Peter Bakker
A causal claim made by Peter Bakker in the article titled "Accountants Will Save the World" is as follows: the inability of all businesses getting involved in solving the world's toughest problems is caused by the current less comprehensive accounting rules (Bakker, 2013).
The claim presents a cause and effect relationship. The evidence presented by Bakker makes the claim valid. The author is a business professional with vast experience with regards to his claim. The factor validates his claims as he has vast experience in the field, thus understands what he is talking about. In his introductory part, the author gives an anecdote describing how TNT N.V. was successful in enabling the UN Urgency, WFP to solve dilemmas. The professional support they gave, with him being the CEO of Transport Company, resulted in the success of the UN agency dealing with a complex dilemma. He notes that the social element of success was not captured in his firm's financial report. The claim cements the evidence of his claim as he gives first-hand evidence of the claim.
Evidence of sustainability reporting
The validity is also enhanced by the author when he presents the evidence that, since the Global Reporting Initiative in 2000 began, companies have been increasingly including evidence of sustainability in their report but most do not present detailed definition of their sustainability journey's destination. He then proposes a method that he believes will make the claim a reality. That is, the non-financial parts of reporting should be made to be rule-based thereby enabling the comparison of performances in various industries. That will be the basis of businesses' solving the world's toughest problems. He also proposes that being transparent, acknowledging the resources exploited or conserved and factoring the social benefits lost or gained in the value of the company as part of the solution. The alternative explanation of the phenomenon could be to get businesses involved in solving the problems by having the companies embrace a positive sustainability culture. The claim could be a contestable claim since the evidence which is not mathematical claims or among the claims that could be accepted without challenge (Dyer, 2006, p11).
A causal claim by Korten
A causal claim made by Korten in either chapters 13 or 14 of the book, "When Corporations Rule the World", is as follows: Extractive investments causes the economy to be unhealthy (Korten, 2001, p187).
The author validates the claim rather effectively by presenting sufficient evidence throughout chapter 14. In the initial paragraphs of the chapter, he explains how extractive investments affect the economy. Accordingly, Korten explains that an extractive investment heavily rewards an individual or a handful of them in the economy and decrease the society's overall wealth (Korten, 2001, p187). He presents and describes the various forms of extractive investments and their impact on the health of economies. The solid evidence which supports the claim is presented by the author when he describes a case in point of how the British economy's health was impacted in 1992. In the case, Soros gained $10 billion worth of British pounds through betting. The event resulted in the British pound losing value against the yen. The British pound fell by 41 percent against the Japanese yen (Korten, 2001, p191). An alternative explanation of the causes of the economy to be unhealthy includes a description of the other factors such as corruption among others which cause poor health of the economy.
References
Dyer, L. (2006). Critical thinking for business students. Concord, ON Captus Press.
Korten, D.C. (2001). When Corporations Rule the World. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc.
Peter Bakker, (March 05, 2013). Accountants Will Save the World. Havard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/03/accountants-will-save-the-world
