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The theory of the social responsibility of the firm oscillates between two extremes: one that reduces the firm's responsibility to the obtainment of (the greatest possible) profit for its shareholders, and another that extends the firm's responsibility to include a wide range of actors with an interest or "stake" in the firm. The stakeholder theory of the social responsibility of business is more appealing from an ethical point of view, and yet it lacks a solid foundation that would be acceptable (...) to a variety of schools of thought.In this paper I argue that the stakeholder theory could be founded on the concept of the common good. First, I explain the foundations of the theory of the common good, the concept itself, how it relates to the individual good, and its role in the firm. Following that, I explain how the theory of the common good could be applied to the stakeholder theory. Finally, I draw some conclusions. (shrink) | |
Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system of virtue (...) ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink) | |
This article reports the findings, analysis, and commentary on survey results of academicians in the Social Issues in Management (SIM) field. The three major themes guiding the study were (a) current and future research in the SIM field, (b) strengths and weaknesses of research in the SIM field, and (c) research versus management practice in the SIM field. A number of specific questions were posed: What are the current topics on which you are conducting research? What topics do you see (...) as most important for the SIM field for the balance of the 1990s? What recent articles will most impact SIM research in the 1990s? What are the strengths and weaknesses of current SIM research? What topics will be most relevant to practicing managers? What recommendations do you propose for bridging the gap between SIM research and management practice? The experts' responses were categorized and discussed so that current and future scholars might have a basepoint for evaluating future research. The analysis and commentary concludes with a SIM research framework for the 1990s. (shrink) | |
:International business norms do not exist. Content and development of such norms is a significant research question for business ethics scholarship. Any norms must address difficult practical and moral problems facing multinational enterprises. The author’s thesis is as follows. A key circumstance is that international relations remain a Hobbesian state of nature. The theoretical solution of a global sovereignty for norm formulation and enforcement is unlikely. The business ethics literature proposes other insightful but theoretical and conflicting solutions to abstract wealth-responsibility (...) and universalism-relativism controversies. Theoretical convergence seems unlikely. Evolution of multiple international policy regimes fragmented by policy arena is more probable. Regimes will typically be neither morals by agreement nor a morality of the marketplace. Regime development can occur in various other ways. Moral leadership, by firms, stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations or governments, can be a vital force. Formal ethical theories can inform and guide such leadership initiatives. This process perspective is applied to several recent case examples cited here as supporting evidence: anti-corruption, labor, environmental, human rights, and fiduciary responsibility initiatives. (shrink) | |
ABSTRACT:This article reviews four key orientations in environmental ethics that range from an instrumental understanding of sustainability to one that acknowledges the intrinsic value of sustainable behavior. It then shows that the current scholarly discourse around corporate sustainability management—as reflected in environment management, corporate social responsibility, and corporate political activity —mostly favors an instrumental perspective on sustainability. Sustainable business practices are viewed as anthropocentric and are conceptualized as a means to achieve competitive advantage. Based on these observations, we speculate about (...) what corporate sustainability management might look like if it applied ethical orientations that emphasize the intrinsic value of nature. This discussion also includes an introduction to two articles in this special section focused on the role of the environmental manager and sustainability standards, both of which offer paths for incorporating intrinsic valuation of the environment into sustainability management. (shrink) | |
Market-based social governance schemes that establish standards of conduct for producers and traders in international supply chains aim to reduce the negative socioenvironmental effects of globalization. While studies have examined how characteristics of social governance schemes promote socially responsible producer behavior, it has not yet been examined how these same characteristics affect consumer behavior. This is a crucial omission, because without consumer demand for socially produced products, the reach of the social benefits is likely to be limited. We develop a (...) comprehensive model that links twocharacteristics of market-based social governance schemes—(1) stringency and enforcement of requirements, and (2) promotion—to two conditions required for governance schemes to generate significant social benefits: (1) socially responsible behavior of participating firms; and (2) consumer demand for socially produced products which, in turn, expands products produced according to social governance schemes, and thus, the quantity of social benefits. We discuss market-based social governance schemes in the context of fair trade coffee. (shrink) | |
This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for (...) the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink) | |
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Extant business ethics literature available for application to international business demonstrates some variety but no comprehensive principles. While the domains of both international business and business ethics are expanding, they are also becoming increasingly divergent. At the same time, the primacy accorded to the multinational enterprise in both fields ignores the socio-cultural and political embeddedness of economic activities, and multiple agencies in international business (individuals, firms, nations, etc.). Some international business theorists have offered the view that international exchange should be (...) the central building block for theories on international business. In this paper, it is argued that international exchange could be the fundamental unit of analysis for international business ethics as well. The potentially unifying features of exchange norms and ethical principles leads the author to develop some core exchange ethics principles that are tested on three recent international business practices. (shrink) | |
The 2008 financial crisis exposed the dark side of the financial sector in the UK. It brought attention to the contaminated culture of the business, which accommodated the systemic malpractices that largely contributed to the financial turmoil of 2008. In the wake of the crisis there seems to be a wide consensus that this contaminated culture can no longer be accepted and needs to change. This article examines the ills of the UK financial market, more specifically the cultural contamination problem, (...) which was uncovered by the 2008 financial crisis, in order to explore its genesis and the suitable solutions for it. In this regard, the article analyses the ethical finance sector from theoretical and practical perspectives in order to assess its role in addressing the cultural contamination problem of the UK financial market. (shrink) | |
This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations rendersMNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for the performance (...) of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions. (shrink) | |
Moving toward a possible transatlantic free trade area (TAFTA), the European Union (EU) and the United States reached an accord in December 1995 to collaborate on 150 policy issues. Regional market integration arrangements involve the acceptance of international policy regimes defining conditions for cooperation and harmonization. Because multinational enterprises (MNEs) will likely increase in size and global scope, regional and global regime development efforts for defining corporate social responsibility and performance norms will be needed. In light of these trends, this (...) article focuses on a case study of an emerging, global anticorruption norm among countries of diverse cultures, interests, and values. Although, historically, a norm against the bribery of domestic public officials has been virtually universal, there was little prohibition against bribery by business of foreign public officials. Regionally adopted anticorruption norms require national implementation and enforcement, and they must operate globally to be effective. Implications for other norms are considered. (shrink) | |
North Korea is under strict UN economic sanctions because it violated UN policy in its development of nuclear weapons and long range missiles as well as for its militant rhetoric. South Korea and Japan, as close allies of the USA, are unsure of the future. Is there a way to bring some peace and stability to the Korean peninsula? Some argue that this is a hopeless task as long as the current leadership of North Korea is in power. This article (...) takes a more positive stance and outlines a possible way forward. The study, following the position of the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, assumes that the conflict is at root one over ideology and power. The leadership of North Korea understands itself as “a revolutionary and socialist state” and is determined to continue to control the country through a rigorous and sometimes brutal government oversight of the culture. Although poverty and hunger are widespread, the people have little opportunity to be heard. What if the leaders of North Korea were persuaded that they could gain legitimacy through developing a dynamic economy that brought flourishing to their people and respect by fellow-nations in the global village? The article proposes to start this new adventure by developing enterprise zones in the North that would bring jobs and food to hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. To begin this project, there would need to be dramatic steps toward denuclearization on the part of the North in order to relax the UN economic sanctions. Is it possible? The article outlines a way forward. (shrink) | |
While a significant body of literature has highlighted the moral obligations of companies regarding the sustainable use of common pool resources, business activities that contribute to the sustenance of common pool resources remain embryonic. Studies in this area have largely focused on environmental stimuli rather than on the complex motivational structures that drive or hinder businesses’ contributions to common pool resources. We explore the different motives and behaviors of businesses and their contributions to common pool resources, and propose four roles (...) by which companies’ motives and behaviors toward common pool resources can be categorized—namely, free riders, followers, believers, and altruists. We shift the focus from moral reasoning to Platt’s :641–651, 1973) notion of social trapping and his “ways out” as Platt’s “ways out” include propositions that address not only environmental stimuli but also companies’ motives. Both types of propositions are important for businesses to be able to respond rapidly to the scarcity of certain common pool resources and to use and maintain common pool resources in a sustainable way. Based on our categorization and Platt’s typology of social traps and “ways out,” we propose a theoretical framework by which companies and other stakeholders are provided with a differentiating perspective that allows for propositions addressing the complex nature of motivational structures and common pool resources. Our framework helps business leaders, institutions, and policy makers decide on actions that can contribute to the sustainability of common pool resources and that differ from actions that solely serve organizational self-interests. (shrink) | |
This paper argues that economic rationality and ethical behavior cannot be reduced one to the other, thus casting doubt on the validity of assertions such as ‘profit is ethical’ or ‘ethics pays’. In order to express ethical dilemmas in a way which opposes economic interest with ethical concerns, we propose a model of rational behavior that combines these two irreducible dimensions in an open but not arbitrary manner. Behaviors that are neither ethical nor profitable are considered irrational . However, behaviors (...) that are profitable but unethical, and behaviors that are ethical but not profitable, are all treated as rational . Combining ethical concerns with economic interest, ethical business is in turn seen as an optimal form of rationality between venality and sacrifice. Because everyone prefers to communicate that they act ethically, ethical business remains ambiguous until some economic interest is actually sacrificed. We argue, however, that ethical business has an interest in demonstrating its consistency between communication and behavior by a transparent attitude. On the other hand, venal behaviors must remain confidential to hide the corresponding lack of consistency. This discursive approach based on transparency and confidentiality helps to further distinguish between ethical and unethical business behaviors. (shrink) | |
Macromarketing attempts to address issues that engage marketing and society and previous ethical scholarship has focused on distributive justice and on exchanges that occur in conventional markets. As our research highlights, however, the distributive justice approach alone is insufficient for managing the complexities, ethical paradoxes, and out-of-market conditions associated with wicked, cross-national social concerns. In this article, we integrate macromarketing with the theory of the common good in order to provide a foundation for framing societal change that can encompass nonmarket (...) value, stakeholder rights, collective social priorities, organizational responsibilities, and political action. (shrink) | |
From where does management acquire its authority to act in the name of the corporation? The orthodoxy that shareholders alone authorise management is frequently criticised for treating the corporation as the property of shareholders, rather than as a distinct legal person in its own right (Ciepley, 2013; Deakin, 2012; Robé, 2011; Stout, 2012). However, Hobbes’s theory of incorporation in Leviathan shows this influential critique of shareholder primacy to rest on a non sequitur. It does not follow from the (correct) observation (...) that the corporation is a legal person to the conclusion that its interests are distinct from those of shareholders. Just as individuals become citizens of a state when they authorise a sovereign, shareholders are incorporated when they authorise a representative assembly to act in their interests. Shareholders thereby form a single corporate person and are ultimately responsible for whatever is done in their corporate name. (shrink) | |
The employment of foreign workers is one of the most crucial problems today in the domain of work relations. Absorbing workersfrom abroad poses serious questions concerning the moral obligations of the employers as well as the government authorities in the migrantreceiving country. Unfortunately, the moral dilemmas of foreign labor have been largely neglected by business ethics researchers. This paper develops a conceptual framework based on the multinational corporation (MNC) ethical research to help examine the moral obligations of employers and states (...) toward foreign workers, as opposed to citizens. The main argument is that domestic employers, who have the power to affect crucial aspects in the lives of migrant workers, incur obligations to these people and bear moral responsibility for their subsistence. As regards the host country in a universal social order based on the existence of nation-states, the employment of foreign workers poses a genuine ethical dilemma between two valid moral duties: the duty to improve the welfare of nationals and the duty to promote the interests of everyone, regardless of their nationality. (shrink) | |
The first issue of BusinessEthics Quarterlyappeared five years ago. This article classifies the content of the 141 articles that have appeared since that time along 18 dimensions, and 118 categories within those dimensions, to determine trends within the discipline. The major trend appears to be a shift in focus towards the increased discussion of a new approach/paradigm for the field, and towards a normative/descriptive interface of the theory. The major problem seems to be a lack of explicit conceptual definition and (...) beginning empirical effort to support that new focus, which may thus prove unsustainable over time. (shrink) | |
One of the dominant traditions in normative ethics is characterised by the attempt to develop a comprehensive moral theory that can distinguish right from wrong in a range of cases by drawing on a philosophical account of the good. Familiar versions of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics have emerged from this tradition. Yet such theories often seem to lack the resources needed to evaluate the broader contexts in which moral dilemmas arise, which may cause them to encourage moral complicity. Context-insensitive (...) complicity of this sort receives surprisingly little direct philosophical attention, despite its being a ubiquitous concern for ordinary moral agents and despite the threat it poses to this form of ethical theorising. The present paper sketches the problem more formally and canvasses some leading responses before locating its source in the implicit distinction between moral and non-moral domains at the root of much traditional normative theorising. (shrink) | |
Neoclassical economic theory assurnes that people pursue utility maximization within an obiective framework, evident to all, that serves as the basis for the interaction. Agents are assumed to be detached observers who see the situation as it is in obiective reality. It is argued in this article that there is no obiective ground for interaction that exists apart from the understanding of economic agents. Agents have orientations that change over time depending on the way that the situation is currently understood. (...) Depth of understanding and the extent of common ground depend on the quality of attention and the will to openness and honesty. Efforts to maintain connections with others make possible mutual understanding and visions of the common good that enable the coordinated pursuit of desired states of the world. (shrink) | |
The measure proposed here, the ratio of the price reported in a given trade to the average world price for that commodity, is based on the average world price for a given commodity reported for all trades between the U.S. and all other countries for a given period. This new measure can be used to enable government agencies to identify trades between U.S. firms or individuals and their counterparts in other countries which are designed to further prohibited activities such as (...) money laundering or tax avoidance. This measure would also enable the U.S. government to monitor trade flows more accurately, facilitating more analysis of trade imbalances between countries and tracking trade in strategie materials, for example, weapons. Use of this new measure could enable naive buyers and seIlers of goods, for example, those situated in remote or underdeveloped markets, to know what their counterparts in more central and informed countries are paying or being paid for comparable goods, and hence to become more informed as trading partners. (shrink) | |
Gender greatly impacts access to opportunities, potential, and success in corporate leadership roles. We begin with a general presentation of why such discussion is necessary for basic considerations of justice and fairness in gender equality and how the issues we raise must impact any ethical perspective on gender in the corporate workplace. We continue with a breakdown of the central categories affecting the success of women in corporate leadership roles. The first of these includes gender-influenced behavioral factors, such as the (...) requirements and expectations of gendered verbal and nonverbal communication styles as well as appearance. We move on to address the impact of family on corporate leadership opportunities and success, discussing the asymmetrical evaluation of an individual’s potential, authority, and competence based on gender stereotypes of familial obligations and expectations. Finally, we address how gender impacts access to networking and sponsorship opportunities and the long-term effects of systematic limitations on women’s inclusion in the upper echelons of corporate leadership. We conclude with a summary of the questions and issues raised by our discussion and direct individuals to consider how different ethical systems and moral requirements might influence their interpretations of gender and leadership in the corporate workplace. (shrink) | |
This paper argues that multinational corporations face levels of environmental and social responsibility higher than their national counterparts. Drawing on the literatures of stakeholder salience, corporate reputation management, and evidence from the confrontation between Shell and Greenpeace over the Brent Spar, in 1995, two mechanisms – international reputation side effects, and foreign stakeholder salience – are identified and their contribution in creating an environment more restrictive, in terms of environmental and social responsibility, is elaborated on. The paper concludes with discussing (...) the links of the work presented here with a number of ongoing debates within the filed of international business ethics, and the managerial implications of the two mechanisms identified. (shrink) | |
Transnationals operate in what may be called the margins of morality because the historical, cultural, and governmental mores of the world''s nation-states are not uniform. There is a gray area of ethical judgment where the standards of the transnational''s home country differ substantially from those of the host country. Following the argument of institutional theory in providing stability and meaning to social behavior, in matters of moral conduct the transnational is likely to yield to at least four policing authorities: itself, (...) in terms of the integrity of its management and by decision-making that follows its own code of ethics, other corporations within its competitive set, governmental agencies including those of the host country, and public exposure, which includes the media as well as non-governmental agencies such as offshore watchdog groups. The fourth mechanism, public exposure, is thought to be the most effective in policing transnational conduct. (shrink) | |
If it is accepted that the real marketplace does not necessarily distribute wealth in the manner that the ideal market would have done, and that societal institutions have an obligation to bring the real and ideal market distributions into accord, then it can be argued that economic actors have a responsibility to consider the effects of their activities on the distribution of wealth in society. This paper asserts that businesses have a responsibility to consider the wealth distribution effects of their (...) wealth-creating decisions. We use arguments from moral economics and Catholic social teaching to support this assertion, deriving decision principles that we apply to the Starbucks fair trade coffee case. (shrink) |
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