I was in school about a decade ago, but at that time the big buzzword was "stakeholder." In pure economics, and in reality, the C-suite's job is to maximize profits for shareholders. Period. But under the doctrine of "shareholder interests" business leaders have been trained to balance the interests of all parties - from employees, to vendors, to communities, to local governments, and to shareholders too. It always infuriated me because, while it sounds all warm and fuzzy, it's demonstrably false. If you're going to stay with an expensive vendor rather than their cheaper competitor because you're looking out for the interests of that stakeholder, it's an objectively bad business decision. It's the same perverse situation that globalists are in on the world stage, where diplomats are afraid to stand up for their own nation's best interests, instead obsessing over what the other guy wants and achieving "win/win" results.

Anyway, in my opinion the current hysteria started with the stakeholder logic. Today, such logic is used to justify poor policies like supplier diversity initiatives, where companies commit to buying inferior products at inflated prices if they're from a "diverse" vendor.