This article draws on the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant to explore whether a corporate ‘duty of beneficence’ to non-shareholders is consistent with the orthodox ‘shareholder theory’ of the firm. It examines the ethical framework of Milton Friedman’s argument and asks whether it necessarily rules out the well-being of non-shareholders as a corporate objective. The article examines Kant’s distinction between ‘duties of right’ and ‘duties of virtue’ (the latter including the duty of beneficence) and investigates their consistency with the shareholder (...) theory. The article concludes that it is possible within the ethical framework of shareholder theory for managers to pursue directly the happiness of non-shareholders. Furthermore, shareholders have a duty to hold management to account for the moral consequences of the firm’s activities on non-shareholding stakeholders. (shrink)

This paper is the third in a series of four that is directed at understanding and assessing stakeholder theory for the purposes of business ethics. It addresses the suitability and viability of the theory, rejecting objections of a moral and efficiency sort based (respectively) on claims about property rights and the economic superiority of the alternative stockholder approach, but accepting that implementation problems require limiting both the number of groupings admitted to stakeholder status and the degree of responsibility towards them. (...) The conclusion looks forward to the construction of a suitably limited version of the stakeholder approach in a fourth paper drawing upon this one and the previous two. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs in economic terms Friedman's theorem that the only social responsibility of firms is to increase their profits while staying within legal and ethical rules. A model of three levels of moral conduct is attributed to the firm: (1) self-interested engagement in the market process itself, which reflects according to classical and neoclassical economics an ethical ideal; (2) the obeying of the "rules of the game," largely legal ones; and (3) the creation of ethical capital, which allows moral (...) conduct to enter the market process beyond the rules of the game. Points (1) and (2) position the Friedman theorem in economic terms while point (3) develops an economic revision of the theorem, which was not seen by Friedman. Implications are spelled out for an instrumental stakeholder theory of the firm. (shrink)

This paper investigates the possibilities and problems of benchmarking Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). After a methodological analysis of the advantages and problems of benchmarking, we develop a benchmark method that includes economic, social and environmental aspects as well as national and international aspects of CSR. The overall benchmark is based on a weighted average of these aspects. The weights are based on the opinions of companies and NGO's. Using different methods of weighting, we find that the outcome of the benchmark (...) is rather robust for a sample of more than 50 large Dutch companies. (shrink)

Definitions of what it is to be a stakeholder are divided into "claimant" definitions requiring some sort of claim on the services of a business, "influencer" definitions requiring only a capacity to influence the workings of the business, and "combinatory" definitions allowing for either or both of these requirements. It is argued that for the purposes of business ethics, stakeholding has to be about improving the moral conduct of businesses by directing them at serving more than just the interests of (...) owners. On that basis, influencer definitions are eliminated on the grounds that they only concern morally neutral strategic considerations and combinatory definitions on the grounds that the combining of ethical and strategic considerations they promise can be less confusingly achieved through an exclusively claimant definition. It is concluded that for the purposes of business ethics, stakeholders are claimants towards whom businesses owe perfect or imperfect moral duties beyond those generally owed to people at large. (shrink)

This research is a paradigm case of sustainability science being applied to the oil-producing Nigeria Niger Delta. Thus, this research focuses on ethical issues in environmental pollution and multinational oil corporations specifically, the oil and gas industries in the resource-rich region of the Nigerian Niger Delta. Since the discovery of oil deposits and its subsequent exploratory activities on June 01, 1956, the oil-producing wetland has been marred with tripartite major variables of issues of responsibility issues of environmental and social injustice (...) questions of sustainability. (shrink)

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the opinions (...) of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A’s sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective. (shrink)

Within a supportive learning environment, dialogue can allow for the identification and testing of assumptions and tacit beliefs. It can also illustrate the inadequacies in superficial thinking about ethical problems. Internal dialogue allows us to examine our beliefs, and to prepare and evaluate arguments. Each of these elements is important in the study of business ethics. This paper outlines one teaching technique based on Socratic dialogue, and shows how it can be applied to develop business students' thinking about ethics. After (...) justifying the suitability of this technique, and detailing its key elements, the paper offers for consideration an illustration of how the technique may be applied in a classroom setting, using structured role play. The paper concludes with a “teaching agenda”, offering suggestions for how this technique can be applied to teaching business ethics in an undergraduate, or postgraduate module, where it can examine language, structures and practices. (shrink)

The study of decision making has multiple implications for business ethics. This paper outlines some commonly used frameworks for understanding choice in business. It characterises the dominant model for business decision making as rational choice theory (RCT) and contrasts this with a more recent, naturalistic theory of decision-making, image theory. The implications of using RCT and image theory to model decision making are discussed with reference to three ethical systems. RCT is shown to be consistent with Utilitarian ethics, but not (...) with Kantian or Virtue-based ethics. Image theory is shown to be consistent with each. The paper identifies a number of implications following from this analysis. (shrink)

This paper examines the self-interested reasons that businesses can have for ethical behaviour. It distinguishes between economic and non-economic reasons and, among the latter, notes those connected with the self-esteem of managers. It offers a detailed typology of prudential reasons for ethical behaviour, laying particular stress on those to do with avoiding punishment by society for wrongdoing and, more particularly still, stresses the role of campaigning pressure groups within that particular category of reasons. It goes on to suggest that because (...) of their occupation of the moral high ground, campaigning groups are well placed to damage the self-esteem of managers and that this is why those groups seem able to exert an influence that goes beyond their somewhat limited capacity to inflict economic damage upon businesses. The paper concludes with the suggestion that we may be witnessing a virtuous spiral whereby rising public expectations of morality in business lead to ever increasing moral commitments by business that then cause those expectations to rise still further. (shrink)

Following on from work on stakeholder identification, this paper constructs a typology of stakeholder theories based on the extent to which serving the interests of non-shareholders relative to those of shareholders is accepted as a responsibility of companies. A typology based on the division of stakeholder theories into normative, descriptive, and instrumental is rejected on the grounds that the latter two designations refer to second order theories rather than divisions within stakeholder theory and the first is a designation which, for (...) the purposes of business ethics, applies to all stakeholder theories. The crucial distinction between stockholder and stakeholder theory is argued to be their respective rejection and acceptance of role-specific responsibilities toward non-shareholders that are `ultimate objective fulfilling''. From this starting point, a typology is constructed using a division of stakeholder theories into those which do and do not give priority to the interests of shareholders over those of non-shareholders, do and do not posit perfect duties towards non-shareholders as well as shareholders, do and do not accept accountability to non-shareholders as well as shareholders. (shrink)

This article is the final one in a series of four papers investigating the stakeholder approach to running businesses. It argues that the optimally viable version of that approach is one in which employees have a co-equal status as stakeholders with shareholders (the maximum allowed for under stakeholder theory) while other groupings only have a minimal status as stakeholders and are generally restricted to just customers, suppliers, and lenders. This version is argued for on the grounds that it both overcomes (...) the implementation problems attendant upon having to serve the interests of a range of groupings and is justified in terms of stakeholder membership being confined to those groupings with a claim on the services of a business in virtue of directly contributing to its economic functioning. The ranking of non-shareholder stakeholders in the recommended version and, in particular, the maximal ranking granted to employees is argued to reflect the scale of the various contributions as measured by the degree to which making it exposes those stakeholders to both financial risk and a non-financial “work-related” risk peculiar to employees. It is concluded that although this is the best available version of the stakeholder approach it may not be the best of all possible ways of running a business. (shrink)

This paper attempts to mediate between the extremes of a managerial conception of business ethics which subordinates it to management and a political conception which subordinates it to political philosophy. The mediated position arrived at sees the central focus of business ethics in the intersection of micro-managerial concerns with macro-political ones provided by the task of determining morally optimum forms of business. Involvement with the macro rules out subordination to management while, conversely, involvement with the micro rules out subordination to (...) political philosophy. Moreover, such is the (increasing) social importance of business, that business ethics can have at least co-equal explanatory status with political philosophy as a discipline. (shrink)

The article concentrates on problems, which emerge in the ongoing process of transforming a socialistic society to a western welfare society. This process does not only include economic aspects, as it might seem from several articles and books written about the subject. Often these societies, having established a stable financial and legal systems face much harder problems related to the prevailing values. They are not struggling anymore because of bad loans or lack of investment but because of outdated values and (...) inability to adapt themselves to a changing world. To understand these difficulties better, 2000 conflicts, occurred during last four years in local companies, have been investigated.Conflict as the research tool has been chosen because it is a very informative phenomenon for revealing an organisation's general status. It sheds light on different aspects of problems, which occur during rapid development. We could name several conflict reasons but generally all of them stem from three sources. (shrink)