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  1. Advancing Integrative Social Contracts Theory: A Habermasian Perspective.Dirk Ulrich Gilbert & Michael Behnam - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 89 (2):215-234.
    We critically assess integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and show that the concept particularly lacks of moral justification of substantive hypernorms. By drawing on Habermasian philosophy, in particular discourse ethics and its recent application in the theory of deliberative democracy , we further advance ISCT and show that social contracting in business ethics requires a well-justified procedural rather than a substantive focus for managing stakeholder relations. We also replace the monological concept of hypothetical thought experiments in ISCT by a concept (...)
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  • ‘Are Strategists from Mars and Ethicists from Venus?’ – Strategizing as Ethical Reflection.Michael Behnam & Andreas Rasche - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 84 (1):79-88.
    Early strategy scholars have pointed to the importance of reflecting on moral issues within the scope of strategic management. Although strategy content and context have been discussed in relation to ethical reflection, the third aspect, strategy process, has found only little or no attention with regard to ethics. We argue that by emphasizing the process perspective one can understand the related character of strategic management and ethical reflection. We discuss this relatedness along formal, functional, and procedural similarities. Whereas formal aspects (...)
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  • Small Business Social Responsibility: Expanding Core CSR Theory.Laura J. Spence - 2016 - Business and Society 55 (1):23-55.
    This article seeks to expand business and society research in a number of ways. Its primary purpose is to redraw two core corporate social responsibility theories, enhancing their relevance for small business. This redrawing is done by the application of the ethic of care, informed by the value of feminist perspectives and the extant empirical research on small business social responsibility. It is proposed that the expanded versions of core theory have wider relevance, value, and implications beyond the small firm (...)
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  • Introduction to the Special Issue: Globalization as a Challenge for Business Responsibilities.Andreas Georg Scherer, Guido Palazzo & Dirk Matten - 2009 - Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (3):327-347.
    This article assesses some of the implications of globalization for the scholarly debate on business ethics, CSR and related concepts. The argument is based, among other things, on the declining capacity of nation state institutions to regulate socially desirable corporate behavior as well as the growing corporate exposure to heterogeneous social, cultural and political values in societies globally. It is argued that these changes are shifting the corporate role towards a sphere of societal governance hitherto dominated by traditional political actors. (...)
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  • The Role of Four Universal Moral Competencies in Ethical Decision-Making.Rafael Morales-Sánchez & Carmen Cabello-Medina - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 116 (4):717-734.
    Current frameworks on ethical decision-making process have some limitations. This paper argues that the consideration of moral competencies, understood as moral virtues in the workplace, can enhance our understanding of why moral character contributes to ethical decision-making. After discussing the universal nature of four moral competencies (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), we analyse their influence on the various stages of the ethical decision-making process. We conclude by considering the managerial implications of our findings and proposing further research.
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  • Corporate Responsibility Standards: Current Implications and Future Possibilities for Peace Through Commerce.Charles P. Koerber - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 89 (S4):461 - 480.
    Calls for greater corporate responsibility have resulted in the creation of various extralegal mechanisms to shape corporate behavior. The number and popularity of corporate responsibility standards has grown tremendously in the last three decades. Current estimates suggest there may be over 300 standards that address various aspects of corporate behavior and responsibility (e. g., working conditions, human rights, protection of the natural environment, transparency, bribery). However, little is known about how these standards relate directly to the notion of peace through (...)
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  • Multi-stakeholder Initiatives and Legitimacy: A Deliberative Systems Perspective.Kristin Apffelstaedt, Stephanie Schrage & Dirk Ulrich Gilbert - 2024 - Business Ethics Quarterly 34 (3):375-408.
    The legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) as institutions for social and environmental governance in the global economy has received much scholarly attention over the past years. To date, however, research has yet to focus on assessing the legitimacy of MSIs in their interactions with other actors within larger systems of deliberation. Drawing on the deliberative systems perspective developed within deliberative democracy theory, we theorise a normative framework to evaluate the roles of MSIs within the broader systems of governance they co-construct (...)
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  • Strengthening Deliberation in Business: Learning From Aristotle’s Ethics of Deliberation.Sandrine Frémeaux & Christian Voegtlin - 2023 - Business and Society 62 (4):824-859.
    Deliberation has faced criticism with regard to its application to business, on the basis that it can be misused to disseminate an ideology, divert attention from genuine debates, or strengthen the power of certain people. We suggest that Aristotle’s notion of deliberation can mitigate these ethical risks and help companies strengthen their deliberative practices. A comprehensive perspective based on Aristotelian deliberation reveals the relevance of (a) individual and collective deliberation, promoting a virtuous and meaningful reflection, free from ideological conditioning; (b) (...)
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  • Stakeholder Dialogue as Agonistic Deliberation: Exploring the Role of Conflict and Self-Interest in Business-NGO Interaction.Teunis Brand, Vincent Blok & Marcel Verweij - 2020 - Business Ethics Quarterly 30 (1):3-30.
    ABSTRACT:Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility, the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we argue that in many cases, communicative action is not a suitable regulative ideal for dialogue between companies and NGOs. (...)
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  • An Institutional Perspective on the Diffusion of International Management System Standards: The Case of the Environmental Management Standard ISO 14001.Magali A. Delmas & Maria J. Montes-Sancho - 2011 - Business Ethics Quarterly 21 (1):103-132.
    ABSTRACT:This paper analyzes how national institutional factors affect the adoption of the international environmental management standard ISO 14001, using a panel of 139 countries from 1996 to 2006. The analysis emphasizes that during the emerging phase of the standard, the potential lack of consensus within the constituents of the national institutional environment concerning the value of a new standard could send mixed signals to firms about the standard. The results show that in the early phase of adoption, regulative and normative (...)
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  • Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy.Joseph Heath, Jeffrey Moriarty & Wayne Norman - 2010 - Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (3):427-452.
    ABSTRACT:There is considerable overlap between the interests of business ethicists and those of political philosophers. Questions about the moral justifiability of the capitalist system, the basis of property rights, and the problem of inequality in the distribution of income have been of central importance in both fields. However, political philosophers have developed, especially over the past four decades, a set of tools and concepts for addressing these questions that are in many ways quite distinctive. Most business ethicists, on the other (...)
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  • When Organization Theory Met Business Ethics: Toward Further Symbioses.Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens & Andreas Georg Scherer - 2010 - Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (4):643-672.
    ABSTRACT:Organization theory and business ethics are essentially the positive and normative sides of the very same coin, reflecting on how human cooperative activities are organized and how they ought to be organized respectively. It is therefore unfortunate that—due to the relatively impermeable manmade boundaries segregating the corresponding scholarly communities into separate schools and departments, professional associations, and scientific journals—the potential symbiosis between the two fields has not yet fully materialized. In this essay we make a modest attempt at establishing further (...)
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  • (1 other version)The limits of corporate responsibility standards.Andreas Rasche - 2010 - Business Ethics: A European Review 19 (3):280-291.
    I explore the limits of corporate responsibility standards – for example Social Accountability 8000 (SA 8000), the Global Reporting Initiative, the Fair Labor Association workplace code – by looking at these initiatives through Derrida's aporias of justice as set out in ‘Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”’. Based on a discussion of SA 8000, I uncover the unavoidable aporias that are associated with the use of this standard. I contribute to the literature on corporate responsibility standards in general (...)
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  • The Moral Legitimacy of NGOs as Partners of Corporations.Dorothea Baur & Guido Palazzo - 2011 - Business Ethics Quarterly 21 (4):579-604.
    ABSTRACT:Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. (...)
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  • Building Common Ground: How Facilitators Bridge Between Diverging Groups in Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue.Julia Grimm, Rebecca C. Ruehle & Juliane Reinecke - 2024 - Journal of Business Ethics 194 (3):583-608.
    The effectiveness of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in tackling grand social and environmental challenges depends on productive dialogue among diverse parties. Facilitating such dialogue in turn entails building common ground in form of joint knowledge, beliefs, and suppositions. To explore how such common ground can be built, we study the role of different facilitators and their strategies for bridging the perspectives of competing stakeholder groups in two contrasting MSIs. The German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles was launched in an initially hostile communicative (...)
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  • Fit for addressing grand challenges? A process model for effective accountability relationships within multi‐stakeholder initiatives in developing countries.Esther Hennchen & Judith Schrempf-Stirling - 2020 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 30 (3):5-24.
    Business is expected to contribute to grand challenges (GC) such as poverty within their corporate social responsibilities. Multi‐stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) have developed to a popular governance model to address GC. While existing scholarship has discussed the positive and negative aspects of MSIs, we know relatively little about how corporations within MSIs are held accountable. The objective of the study is to analyze the dynamics of accountability relationships between the corporate actor and the accountability forum to conceive a process model for (...)
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  • Emerging Paradigms of Corporate Social Responsibility, Regulation, and Governance: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium.Bimal Arora, Arno Kourula & Robert Phillips - 2020 - Journal of Business Ethics 162 (2):265-268.
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  • Can Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives Improve Global Supply Chains? Improving Deliberative Capacity with a Stakeholder Orientation.Vivek Soundararajan, Jill A. Brown & Andrew C. Wicks - 2019 - Business Ethics Quarterly 29 (3):385-412.
    ABSTRACT:Global multi-stakeholder initiatives are important instruments that have the potential to improve the social and environmental sustainability of global supply chains. However, they often fail to comprehensively address the needs and interests of various supply-chain participants. While voluntary in nature, MSIs have most often been implemented through coercive approaches, resulting in friction among their participants and in systemic problems with decoupling. Additionally, in those cases in which deliberation was constrained between and amongst participants, collaborative approaches have often failed to materialize. (...)
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  • Input and Output Legitimacy of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives.Sébastien Mena & Guido Palazzo - 2012 - Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (3):527-556.
    In a globalizing world, governments are not always able or willing to regulate the social and environmental externalities of global business activities. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI), defined as global institutions involving mainly corporations and civil society organizations, are one type of regulatory mechanism that tries to fill this gap by issuing soft law regulation. This conceptual paper examines the conditions of a legitimate transfer of regulatory power from traditional democratic nation-state processes to private regulatory schemes, such as MSIs. Democratic legitimacy is (...)
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  • Transnational Norm-Building Networks and the Legitimacy of Corporate Social Responsibility Standards.Ulrich Mueckenberger & Sarah Jastram - 2010 - Journal of Business Ethics 97 (2):223-239.
    In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with remarks (...)
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  • Opportunities and Problems of Standardized Ethics Initiatives – a Stakeholder Theory Perspective.Dirk Ulrich Gilbert & Andreas Rasche - 2008 - Journal of Business Ethics 82 (3):755-773.
    This article explains problems and opportunities created by standardized ethics initiatives (e.g., the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, and SA 8000) from the perspective of stakeholder theory. First, we outline differences and commonalities among currently existing initiatives and thus generate a common ground for our discussion. Second, based on these remarks, we critically evaluate standardized ethics initiatives by drawing on descriptive, instrumental, and normative stakeholder theory. In doing so, we explain why these standards are helpful tools when it (...)
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  • Corporations and NGOs: When Accountability Leads to Co-optation. [REVIEW]Dorothea Baur & Hans Peter Schmitz - 2012 - Journal of Business Ethics 106 (1):9-21.
    Interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise, frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and NGOs can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co-optation. Greater scrutiny of NGO spending driven by self-appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of CSR advanced by corporate actors weaken the (...)
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  • Corporations as political actors – a report on the first swiss master class in corporate social responsibility.Andreas Rasche, Dorothea Baur, Mariëtte van Huijstee, Stephen Ladek, Jayanthi Naidu, Cecilia Perla, Esther Schouten, Michael Valente & Mingrui Zhang - 2007 - Journal of Business Ethics 80 (2):151 - 173.
    This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...)
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  • Creating Value by Sharing Values: Managing Stakeholder Value Conflict in the Face of Pluralism through Discursive Justification.Maximilian J. L. Schormair & Dirk Ulrich Gilbert - 2021 - Business Ethics Quarterly 31 (1):1-36.
    ABSTRACTThe question of how to engage with stakeholders in situations of value conflict to create value that includes a plurality of conflicting stakeholder value perspectives represents one of the crucial current challenges of stakeholder engagement as well as of value creation stakeholder theory. To address this challenge, we conceptualize a discursive sharing process between affected stakeholders that is oriented toward discursive justification involving multiple procedural steps. This sharing process provides procedural guidance for firms and stakeholders to create pluralistic stakeholder value (...)
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  • Contestation in Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: Enhancing the Democratic Quality of Transnational Governance.Daniel Arenas, Laura Albareda & Jennifer Goodman - 2020 - Business Ethics Quarterly 30 (2):169-199.
    ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...)
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  • CSR as Value Attunement within Governance Processes: Stakeholder Dialogue, Corporate Principles and Regulation.Frank Jan de Graaf - 2016 - Business and Society Review 121 (3):365-390.
    I argue that a governance perspective on corporate social responsibility (CSR) makes it possible to explain why the concept will always be under‐defined, is normative and thus political by nature, and is and should be difficult to measure. The perspective also makes it possible to understand the interaction between corporate values and stakeholders values.In processes of dialogue within governance systems and governance structures, changing insights into the principles of CSR can lead to regulation or its adjustment. Power is important in (...)
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  • The Effectiveness of Market-Based Social Governance Schemes.Deepa Aravind & Petra Christmann - 2011 - Business Ethics Quarterly 21 (1):133-156.
    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 (...)
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  • Board Gender Quotas: Exploring Ethical Tensions From A Multi-Theoretical Perspective.Siri Terjesen & Ruth Sealy - 2016 - Business Ethics Quarterly 26 (1):23-65.
    ABSTRACT:Despite 40 years of equal opportunities policies and more than two decades of government and organization initiatives aimed at helping women reach the upper echelons of the corporate world, women are seriously underrepresented on corporate boards. Recently, fifteen countries sought to redress this imbalance by introducing gender quotas for board representation. The introduction of board gender quota legislation creates ethical tensions and dilemmas which we categorize in terms of motivations, legitimacy, and outcomes. We investigate these tensions through four overarching theoretical (...)
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  • (1 other version)Corporate Social Responsibility and Multi-Stakeholder Governance: Pluralism, Feminist Perspectives and Women’s NGOs.Kate Grosser - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 137 (1):65-81.
    The corporate social responsibility literature has increasingly explored relationships between civil society and social movements, including non-governmental organizations, and corporations, as well as the role of NGOs in multi-stakeholder governance processes. This paper addresses the challenge of including a plurality of civil society voices and perspectives in business–NGO relations, and in CSR as a process of governance. The paper contributes to CSR scholarship by bringing insights from feminist literature to bear on CSR as a process of governance, and engaging with (...)
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  • (1 other version)Nongovernmental Organizations in Business and Society, Management, and International Business Research.Arno Kourula & Salla Laasonen - 2010 - Business and Society 49 (1):35-67.
    This review shows how the relationship between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and businesses has been examined in business and society, management, and international business (IB) literatures. Altogether 88 relevant studies have been identified through the analysis of article abstracts from 11 leading journals in these fields. The articles have been classified into three categories according to their focus: NGO—business interface, NGO—business— government interface, and NGOs as one of many corporate stakeholders. Six main themes are identified: (a) Activism and NGO influence, (b) (...)
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  • Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives on Sustainability: A Cross-Disciplinary Review and Research Agenda for Business Ethics.Frank G. A. de Bakker, Andreas Rasche & Stefano Ponte - 2019 - Business Ethics Quarterly 29 (3):343-383.
    ABSTRACT:Although the literature on multi-stakeholder initiatives for sustainability has grown in recent years, it is scattered across several academic fields, making it hard to ascertain how individual disciplines, such as business ethics, can further contribute to the debate. Based on an extensive review of the literature on certification and principle-based MSIs for sustainability, we show that the scholarly debate rests on three broad themes : theinputinto creating and governing MSIs; theinstitutionalizationof MSIs; and theimpactthat relevant initiatives create. While our discussion reveals (...)
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  • License to Critique: A Communication Perspective on Sustainability Standards.Lars Thøger Christensen, Mette Morsing & Ole Thyssen - 2017 - Business Ethics Quarterly 27 (2):239-262.
    ABSTRACT:Sustainability standards are important governance tools for addressing social and environmental challenges. Yet, such tools are often criticized for being either too open-ended or too restrictive, thereby failing to contribute significantly to the development of sustainable practices. Both dimensions of the critique, however, miss the point. While all standards in principle combine elements of openness and closure, both of which are necessary to keep the sustainability agenda relevant and adaptive, sustainability standards often operate in contexts that favor closure. In this (...)
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  • Who and What Really Matters to the Firm: Moving Stakeholder Salience beyond Managerial Perceptions.Pete Tashman & Jonathan Raelin - 2013 - Business Ethics Quarterly 23 (4):591-616.
    ABSTRACT:We develop the concept of stakeholder salience to account for stakeholders who should matter to the firm, even when managers do not perceive them as important. While managers are responsible for attributing salience to stakeholders, they can overlook or ignore stakeholder importance because of market frictions that affect managerial perceptions or induce opportunism. When this happens, corporate financial and social performance can suffer. Thus, we propose that the perceptions of organizational and societal stakeholders should also codetermine the salience of the (...)
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  • Dominant Articulations in Academic Business and Society Discourse on NGO–Business Relations: A Critical Assessment. [REVIEW]Salla Laasonen, Martin Fougère & Arno Kourula - 2012 - Journal of Business Ethics 109 (4):521-545.
    Relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have been the subject of a sharply increasing amount of publications in recent years within academic business journals. In this article, we critically assess this fast-developing body of literature, which we treat as forming a ‘business and society discourse’ on NGO–business relations. Drawing on discourse theory, we examine 199 academic articles in 11 business and society, international business, and management journals. Focusing on the dominant articulations on the NGO–business relationship and key signifiers they (...)
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  • Accountability in a Global Economy: The Emergence of International Accountability Standards.Sandra Waddock - 2011 - Business Ethics Quarterly 21 (1):23-44.
    ABSTRACT:This article assesses the proliferation of international accountability standards (IAS) in the recent past. We provide a comprehensive overview about the different types of standards and discuss their role as part of a new institutional infrastructure for corporate responsibility. Based on this, it is argued that IAS can advance corporate responsibility on a global level because they contribute to the closure of some omnipresent governance gaps. IAS also improve the preparedness of an organization to give an explanation and a justification (...)
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  • Deliberation Without Democracy in Multi-stakeholder Initiatives: A Pragmatic Way Forward.Rob Barlow - 2021 - Journal of Business Ethics 181 (3):543-561.
    Political CSR scholars argue that multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) should be designed to facilitate deliberation among corporations, civil society groups, and others affected by corporate conduct for their decisions to be considered democratically legitimate. However, critics argue that decisions reached within deliberative MSIs will lack democratic legitimacy so long as corporations are granted a role in helping to make them. If the critics are correct, it leads to a paradox. Corporations must be excluded from holding decision-making authority within MSIs if they (...)
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  • Guest Editors’ Introduction:Corporate Sustainability Management and Environmental Ethics.Douglas Schuler, Andreas Rasche, Dror Etzion & Lisa Newton - 2017 - Business Ethics Quarterly 27 (2):213-237.
    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 (...)
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  • Corporations as Political Actors – A Report on the First Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility.Andreas Rasche, Dorothea Baur, Mariëtte Huijstee, Stephen Ladek, Jayanthi Naidu & Cecilia Perla - 2007 - Journal of Business Ethics 80 (2):151-173.
    This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...)
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  • The United Nations Global Compact.Andreas Rasche - 2013 - Business and Society 52 (1):6-30.
    This article reviews the interdisciplinary literature on the UN Global Compact. The review identifies three research perspectives, which scholars have used to study the UN Global Compact so far: a historical perspective discussing the Global Compact in the context of UN-business relations, an operational perspective discussing the composition and impact of its participants, as well as a governance perspective discussing the constraints and opportunities of the initiative as an institutionalized arena for addressing global governance gaps. The authors contrast these three (...)
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  • Reasoned Moral Agreement: Applying Discourse Ethics within Organizations.Jason Stansbury - 2009 - Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (1):33-56.
    ABSTRACT:Whether at the executive or the line-management levels, businesspeople face moral decisions that cannot be easily resolved with reference to a shared ethos, whether because of diversity of ethea in the organization or its environment, or because the organization's ethos is inadequate for the problem at hand. These decisions are made more common by the changing norms of a pluralistic business environment, and require collective moral deliberation to be adequately resolved. Discourse ethics ideally characterizes the form of valid collective moral (...)
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  • Where Is the Accountability in International Accountability Standards?: A Decoupling Perspective.Michael Behnam & Tammy L. MacLean - 2011 - Business Ethics Quarterly 21 (1):45-72.
    ABSTRACT:A common complaint by academics and practitioners is that the application of international accountability standards (IAS) does not lead to significant improvements in an organization’s social responsibility. When organizations espouse their commitment to IAS but do not put forth the effort necessary to operationally enact that commitment, a “credibility cover” is created that perpetuates business as usual. In other words, the legitimacy that organizations gain by formally adopting the standards may shield the organization from closer scrutiny, thus enabling rather than (...)
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  • (1 other version)The limits of corporate responsibility standards.Andreas Rasche - 2010 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 19 (3):280-291.
    I explore the limits of corporate responsibility standards – for example Social Accountability 8000 (SA 8000), the Global Reporting Initiative, the Fair Labor Association workplace code – by looking at these initiatives through Derrida's aporias of justice as set out in 'Force of Law: The "Mystical Foundation of Authority"'. Based on a discussion of SA 8000, I uncover the unavoidable aporias that are associated with the use of this standard. I contribute to the literature on corporate responsibility standards in general (...)
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  • Transnational Representation in Global Labour Governance and the Politics of Input Legitimacy.Juliane Reinecke & Jimmy Donaghey - 2022 - Business Ethics Quarterly 32 (3):438-474.
    Private governance raises important questions about democratic representation. Rule making is rarely based on electoral authorisation by those in whose name rules are made—typically a requirement for democratic legitimacy. This requires revisiting the role of representation in input legitimacy in transnational governance, which remains underdeveloped. Focussing on private labour governance, we contrast two approaches to the transnational representation of worker interests in global supply chains: non-governmental organisations providing representative claims versus trade unions providing representative structures. Studying the Bangladesh Accord for (...)
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  • Involving, Countering, and Overlooking Stakeholder Networks in Soft Regulation: Case Study of a Small-to-Medium-Sized Enterprise’s Implementation of SA8000.Katerina Nicolopoulou, Stewart R. Clegg, Ashly H. Pinnington & Manal El Abboubi - 2022 - Business and Society 61 (6):1594-1630.
    To achieve effective stakeholder governance in the context of international social accountability certification requires constructing a network of agreement. In a case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise, we examine managers’ attempts at enrolling participants in the supply chain to investigate how they strive to engage these stakeholders. We adopt actor-network theory and sensemaking theory to develop a novel approach to understanding social accountability standards’ certification in stakeholder networks. We argue that the design and operation of any SA standard across a (...)
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  • Managing Competing Demands: Coping With the Inclusiveness–Efficiency Paradox in Cross-Sector Partnerships.Guido Möllering, Andreas Rasche & Leona A. Henry - 2022 - Business and Society 61 (2):267-304.
    This article discusses how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) for sustainability manage the paradoxical tension between stakeholder inclusiveness and administrative efficiency. Drawing on qualitative data from a case study of a CSP focused on urban sustainability, we show how the inclusiveness–efficiency paradox unfolded throughout the studied collaboration. We discuss how the paradox reemerged in a different guise within each phase of the partnership and how three practices of paradox management helped actors to cope with the tension: “customized inviting” (during the formation phase), (...)
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  • Managing Algorithmic Accountability: Balancing Reputational Concerns, Engagement Strategies, and the Potential of Rational Discourse.Alexander Buhmann, Johannes Paßmann & Christian Fieseler - 2020 - Journal of Business Ethics 163 (2):265-280.
    While organizations today make extensive use of complex algorithms, the notion of algorithmic accountability remains an elusive ideal due to the opacity and fluidity of algorithms. In this article, we develop a framework for managing algorithmic accountability that highlights three interrelated dimensions: reputational concerns, engagement strategies, and discourse principles. The framework clarifies that accountability processes for algorithms are driven by reputational concerns about the epistemic setup, opacity, and outcomes of algorithms; that the way in which organizations practically engage with emergent (...)
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  • Marking Their Own Homework: The Pragmatic and Moral Legitimacy of Industry Self-Regulation.Frances Bowen - 2019 - Journal of Business Ethics 156 (1):257-272.
    When is industry self-regulation (ISR) a legitimate form of governance? In principle, ISR can serve the interests of participating companies, regulators and other stakeholders. However, in practice, empirical evidence shows that ISR schemes often under-perform, leading to criticism that such schemes are tantamount to firms marking their own homework. In response, this paper explains how current management theory on ISR has failed to separate the pragmatic legitimacy of ISR based on self-interested calculations, from moral legitimacy based on normative approval. The (...)
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  • The Moral Permissibility of Digital Nudging in the Workplace: Reconciling Justification and Legitimation.Rebecca C. Ruehle - 2023 - Business Ethics Quarterly 33 (3):502-531.
    Organisations increasingly use digital nudges to influence their workforces’ behaviour without coercion or incentives. This can expose employees to arbitrary domination by infringing on their autonomy through manipulation and indoctrination. Nudges might furthermore give rise to the phenomenon of “organised immaturity.” Adopting a balanced approach between overly optimistic and dystopian standpoints, I propose a framework for determining the moral permissibility of digital nudging in the workplace. In this regard, I argue that not only should organisations provide pre-discursive justification of nudges (...)
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  • Responsible Innovation and the Innovation of Responsibility: Governing Sustainable Development in a Globalized World.Christian Voegtlin & Andreas Georg Scherer - 2017 - Journal of Business Ethics 143 (2):227-243.
    Earth’s life-support system is facing megaproblems of sustainability. One important way of how these problems can be addressed is through innovation. This paper argues that responsible innovation that contributes to sustainable development consists of three dimensions: innovations avoid harming people and the planet, innovations ‘do good’ by offering new products, services, or technologies that foster SD, and global governance schemes are in place that facilitate innovations that avoid harm and ‘do good.’ The paper discusses global governance schemes based on deliberation (...)
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