Abstract:This article elaborates a normative Stakeholder Management Theory (SHMT) from a critical theory perspective. The paper argues that the normative theory elaborated by critical theorists such as Habermas exhibits important advantages over its rivals and that these advantages provide the basis for a theoretically more adequate version of SHMT. In the first section of the paper an account is given of normative theory from a critical theory perspective and its advantages over rival traditions. A key characteristic of the critical theory (...) approach is expressed as a distinction between three different normative realms, viz., legitimacy, morality, and ethics. In the second section, the outlines of a theory of stakeholder management are provided. First, three basic tasks of a theoretically adequate treatment of the normative analysis of stakeholder management are identified. This is followed by a discussion of how a critical theory approach to SHMT is able to fulfill these three tasks. (shrink)

Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi regard the human as an emotional being and especially consider such moral feelings as humane love, filial piety and devoted loyalty to be the constituent elements of humanity. On the one hand, they try to integrate the corresponding multiple roles of the humane person, filial son and loyal subject in harmony in order to make one become a true human in the ethical sense; on the other hand, they assign a supreme position merely to filial piety (...) or loyalty in cases of conflict because they regard one's parents or ruler as the greatest root of one's life, respectively. As a result, their ideas about humanity fall into some in-depth moral paradoxes, which might be resolved by a post-Confucian transformation of the traditional Confucian framework from particularistic consanguinism to universalistic humanism. (shrink)

Since its inception, Stakeholder Management Capability (SMC) has constituted a powerful hermeneutic through which business organizations have understood and leveraged stakeholder relationships. On this model, achieving a high level of capability largely depends on managerial ability to effectively bargain with stakeholders and establish solidarity vis-à-vis the successful negotiation, implementation, and execution of "win–win" transactional exchanges. Against this account, it is rightly pointed out that a transactional explanation of stakeholder relationships, regarded by many as the bottom line for stakeholder management, fails (...) to provide managerial direction regarding how to resolve a variety of normative stakeholder claims that resist commoditization. In response to this issue, this paper has two overlapping goals. It seeks to elaborate a discourse theoretical approach to the problem by first drawing out Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and delineating the various types of rational discourse. Second, the paper attempts to present concrete implications for SMC relative to reshaping the contours of rational, process, and transactional analysis in light of central discourse theoretical conclusions. (shrink)

Critics of Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action argue that he has failed to recognize the extent to which moral argumentation is grounded in particular historical contexts, cultural traditions, collective identities, or social lifeworlds. Although he has engaged in a series of strategies aimed at acknowledging the role of particularistic considerations without abandoning his primary commitment to ethical universalism, Habermas has not succeeded in meeting all of the objections of his critics. This paper treats the contradiction between formal and substantive (...) rationality, which lies at the heart of the debate, as an empirical phenomenon within the social world. It argues that the antinomy of formal and substantive rationality plays a central role in historical processes of social change. Through critical argumentation, social actors deliberate on contradictions among strategic, moral, and ethical standards of validity, and they struggle to resolve these contradictions through collective action and the reform of laws, policies, and institutions. Examples are drawn from US political history to substantiate the argument, and some questions are raised for further research. (shrink)

BackgroundGiven that advances in research continuously raise new ethical issues, a multidisciplinary working group of investigators involved in biomedical research has gathered to discuss and compare ethical viewpoints in their daily practice.MethodsThe working group has drafted a Charter for Ethics in Biomedical Research that encompasses all the steps in the research process, i.e. from the initial idea to analysis and publication of the results.ResultsBased on key principles for ethically responsible research, the Charter may serve as a tool for performing research, (...) discussing research issues and training researchers.ConclusionsThe Charter should stimulate researchers to think about their responsibility for research in a progressive, caring society. (shrink)

I argue that the exception must be a legitimate possibility within law as a revolutionary project, in much the same way that civil disobedience is. In this sense, the exception is not outside law if by "law" we mean not positive law as defined by extant legal documents (statutes, legislative committee reports, written judgments, etc.) but law as a living tradition consisting of both abstract norms and a concrete historical understanding of them. So construed, the exception is what can be (...) exemplary - a law unto itself that best interprets and creatively extends (and transcends) the law that already exists, in order to make it inclusive of the other. In the final analysis, immigration law forces us to consider both the concrete individuality and abstract humanity of refugees, asylum seekers and other homeless persons who have been displaced by global economic underdevelopment. When combined with the "statelessness" of desperate classes of immigrants, this fact about immigration law reveals a revolutionary possibility for future development and perfection leading to its own transcendence: from an inhospitable immigration law that is administered exclusively by the nation state to a cosmopolitan law of universal citizenship under the auspices of a global human rights regime. (shrink)