Dominique Schnapper is a sociologist and former member of the French Constitutional Council. Alain Schnapper worked for 30 years successively in consulting,
 industry, and distribution. Since 2018, he has combined his activities as a general management consultant and in research as associate practitioner with the chair “Theory of the Enterprise – Models of Governance and Collective Creation” at MINES ParisTech-PSL.
Between globalization and the transformation of the way people are working, accelerated due to the latest pandemic, are we experiencingthe final days of companies, the disappearance of that collective organization that has been central to the functioning of our societies for two centuries ?
Quite the contrary, categorically respond Dominique Schnapper and Alain Schnapper. Companies are essential not only for the pursuit of economic growth, but even more so for the health of our democracies.
Moreover, we are witnessing an increase in their importance and an expansion of their social responsibility through the growing role they are playing today in realms that are typically foreign to their traditional purviews, be it the environment or public  ealth.
Henceforth there are two challenges we must face. It is important to make sure that companies are not governed only by financial interests, while recognizing that their vocation is one of profitability; and their transformations should be encouraged given that their model of governance directly influences the fate of our national democracies.
This is why the place of the company in our societies and the role it will play will be the great question of the twenty-first century.