> So who decides? Do companies now need a chief political officer?
Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do. Just as Apple and Nike make the _decision_ to employ the questionable overseas labour practices, providing services to them is also a _decision_. The whole point of the corporate executive branch is to make decisions for the company, it's the difference between McDonalds and a bunch of random stores making hamburgers. You can't hand-wave your way out of accountability with statements like this whenever you start having to face hard decisions like this.
> Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do.
That's incorrect.
The vast majority of companies are small and medium sized enterprises who just try to make it through. Does the launderette in the high street make political decisions? The car dealership? The scrap metal yard?
Those all make political decisions. Let's take the car dealership: What are your hiring practices? Are the cars foreign, or domestic? How do you incentivize your salesforce? How much (if any) insurance do you provide employees? How do you provide credit? Do you sell cars to people with bad credit who you don't believe will be able to make payments? How do you handle missed payments? When do you decide to repossess a car? Do you push low emissions and electric vehicles? There's a ton of politics behind literally all of these (and more) questions.
How many large corporations really have a spotless record? (At least from the point of view of activists). You could also not sell to microsoft because of antitrust, or Google and Facebook for privacy issues, or boeing because of how executives made bad decisions around safety, or McDonalds over pay, or.... pretty much every company does something people wont like. I just think it's a slippery slope and not every company or person needs to be an activist around everything. We all have to pick and choose our battles.
Companies make "political" decisions every single day, in literally everything they do. Just as Apple and Nike make the _decision_ to employ the questionable overseas labour practices, providing services to them is also a _decision_. The whole point of the corporate executive branch is to make decisions for the company, it's the difference between McDonalds and a bunch of random stores making hamburgers. You can't hand-wave your way out of accountability with statements like this whenever you start having to face hard decisions like this.