Dayton Hudson Corporation Case Analysis

Analysis of Dayton Hudson Corporation Case

In the case of Dayton Hudson Corporation, the company fell into a situation of a hostile takeover attempted by the Dart Group in 1987. At that time, Kenneth Macke was the CEO of the Dayton Hudson Corporation and sternly disagreed with letting the company fall into the hands of the Haft’s. Macke’s decision on what could be done to terminate the takeover turned the circumstances over to the hands of the state of Minnesota where Dayton Hudson’s headquarters resided. Macke requested a special session of the legislature to revisit the Minnesota corporate takeovers statute. This proved to work in Dayton Hudson’s favor and a statute was enacted that left the decision of a takeover up to the Board of Directors of the company.

The actions that were taken by Kenneth Macke to assist the company with the their takeover situation were an example of how business relies on the government to be responsible for social issues. When pleading their (DHC) case to the governor, Dayton Hudson made sure to make know all of the contributions that they have made to the community and how they have provided safe and secure jobs for its residents. They claimed that if they were to be taken over, the Haft’s would probably break up the company and sell it off to pay for the expenses incurred from the takeover. Jobs would be lost and there would most likely be no social contributions made by the Hafts.

Out of the thinkers that we have studied regarding business’ responsibility, I think that the two that would agree with Macke’s decision to look to the government would be both Freeman and Friedman. In the readings that we have covered, we have seen that they are believers in that the government is who should be responsible for social issues in some way or another. I think that Freeman may feel a lot more strongly about Macke’s decision than Friedman because he argues that government is the sole caretaker when it comes to taking responsibility for social issues while Freeman argues that it is mainly government’s job, but that business plays a huge role in that responsibility.

Friedman’s views are that business’ main responsibility is to maximize shareholders wealth and that in doing so, they are being socially responsible. He also contends that corporations are not people and therefore they cannot be responsible for social issues.