Nowadays businesses are often expected to create not just financial, but multiple kinds of value—and they report on this using numbers and narratives. Multiple-value accounting narratives, such as those required by the Integrated Reporting framework, are often met with suspicion: accounting scholars have argued that inconsistencies between narratives and performances show that narratives are used for impression management rather than to accurately report the (ir)responsible behavior of companies. This paper proposes to assess narratives beyond inconsistencies with reported performances. Starting from (...) the idea that performances are delivered in response to the kinds of value in the situation of the company, we argue that narratives and performances should be analyzed together as interrelated elements and considered in relation to the kinds of value in the situation. The paper transforms the common consequentialist view on which value should be “increased,” into the value pluralist view that something being of value can require many different performances such as for example respecting, maximizing, admiring, maintaining, using, and bringing it about. From this perspective, multiple-value accounting narratives logically precede the reporting of performances and should identify the kinds of value in the situation to which the company ought to respond, which performances are required by these kinds of value, and which indicators and targets should be used to report on these performances. A brief analysis of the annual report of Unilever illustrates how such metaethical criteria can help assess and develop multiple-value accounting narratives. (shrink)

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 (...) through the discursive accommodation of diverging stakeholder value perspectives. The outcomes of such a discursive value-sharing process range from stakeholder value dissensus to low and increasing levels of stakeholder value congruence to stakeholder value consensus. Hence, this article contributes to the emerging literature on integrative stakeholder engagement by conceptualizing a procedural framework that is neither overly oriented towards dissensus nor consensus. (shrink)

Markets, corporations, shareholding, management, law, and ethics are all human constructs. A human element seems essential to their existence. Yet, the predominant conception of shareholders as used in academia as well as the business world is thin, generic, and inanimate. This article argues that a thick conception of shareholders as human beings is needed to legitimize and improve managerial decision making under value pluralism, accurately reflect empirical reality of capital markets, and meet moral demands to respect the dignity of the (...) human person. Drawing on the philosophical idea of thick evaluative concepts, the article explores how this idea can be applied to shareholders and begins to examine some of the implications of considering shareholders’ humanity for the responsibilities of and relationships between managers and shareholders. (shrink)

The last 15 years have seen a remarkable set of changes in the global business environment. Established companies and start-ups alike have been subjected to some fundamental shifts in the very way that we conceptualize business. Together with some generational challenges we have seen myriad calls for a new narrative about business. And, even more recently, the COVID pandemic has reinforced a number of these shifts and led to even more fundamental change. The purpose of this essay is to outline (...) these challenges to the dominant narrative about business and to suggest that it is no longer a useful way to think about value creation and trade (business). (shrink)

The United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has considerable potential for achieving a more sustainable future. However, the concrete realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is impeded by how they are implemented by a diverse set of competent agents. This conceptual paper draws on social impact theory to investigate how businesses can utilise the SDG framework to achieve positive social outcomes. We identify two pathways that can guide businesses to improve their SDGs interventions, which entail considering the _interconnections_ (...) between the goals that are directly or indirectly affected by the initiative at stake and the _inclusiveness_ of the actors affected by the SDGs. Building on the literature on hybrid organising (to frame interconnectedness) and the literature on multi-stakeholder partnerships and deliberative governance (to frame inclusiveness), we discuss a set of organisational mechanisms and transformations that can help businesses ensure that their SDGs interventions are more socially impactful. By doing so, this paper extends the literature on the role of companies for sustainable development and provides some practical implications. (shrink)

In this paper, we derive a four-stage process model of how hybrid organizations respond to specific challenges that arise under conditions of value pluralism and institutional complexity. Engaging in exploratory qualitative research of six Australian hybrid organizations, we identify institutional and organizational responses to pluralism, particularly as organizations strive to uphold multiple value commitments, such as social, environmental and/or financial outcomes. We find that by employing a process of separating, negotiating, aggregating, and subjectively assessing the value that is created, our (...) cases demonstrate how they move between logics in a dynamic fashion and address specific challenges of cognitive dissonance, incommensurability, interdependence and aggregation. Our model contributes to the literature by reframing the notion of ‘tensions’ that arise in conditions of hybridity and characterize specific challenges and sequential responses that may go some way to addressing why some hybrids employ particular responses to pluralism and why some succeed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Experience often manifests a gap between moral principles that are both rationally defensible and widely accepted, and the actual practice of business. In this article, I adapt Pope Francis’s discussion of conscience, gradualness, and discernment, inAmoris Laetitia, for the philosophical context of business ethics in order to better conceptualize and to identify means of narrowing the gap between objective moral principles and business practice. Specifically, right conscience allows for a better understanding of the scope and boundary conditions of moral principles, (...) gradualness highlights the need to identify ways that moral principles can be properly implemented within organizations, and discernment draws attention to the importance of solidarity, in order to avoid one-sided, self-serving action descriptions. In these ways, Francis’s discussion contributes to the narrowing of the gap between objective moral principles and business practice. I conclude by discussing ways that Francis’s framework can inform business ethics courses. (shrink)