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  1. Private Political Authority and Public Responsibility: Transnational Politics, Transnational Firms, and Human Rights.Stephen J. Kobrin - 2009 - Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (3):349-374.
    Transnational corporations have become actors with significant political power and authority which should entail responsibility and liability, specifically direct liability for complicity in human rights violations. Holding TNCs liable for human rights violations is complicated by the discontinuity between the fragmented legal/political structure of the TNC and its integrated strategic reality and the international state system which privileges sovereignty and non-intervention over the protection of individual rights. However, the post-Westphalian transition—the emergence of multiple authorities, increasing ambiguity of borders and jurisdiction (...)
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  • Google, Human Rights, and Moral Compromise.George G. Brenkert - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 85 (4):453-478.
    International business faces a host of difficult moral conflicts. It is tempting to think that these conflicts can be morally resolved if we gained full knowledge of the situations, were rational enough, and were sufficiently objective. This paper explores the view that there are situations in which people in business must confront the possibility that they must compromise some of their important principles or values in order to protect other ones. One particularly interesting case that captures this kind of situation (...)
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  • The Case for Leverage-Based Corporate Human Rights Responsibility.Stepan Wood - 2012 - Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (1):63-98.
    ABSTRACT:Should companies’ human rights responsibilities arise, in part, from their “leverage”—their ability to influence others’ actions through their relationships? Special Representative John Ruggie rejected this proposition in the United Nations Framework for business and human rights. I argue that leverage is a source of responsibility where there is a morally significant connection between the company and a rights-holder or rights-violator, the company is able to make a contribution to ameliorating the situation, it can do so at modest cost, and the (...)
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  • Human Rights, Transnational Corporations and Embedded Liberalism: What Chance Consensus? [REVIEW]Glen Whelan, Jeremy Moon & Marc Orlitzky - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2):367 - 383.
    This article contextualises current debates over human rights and transnational corporations. More specifically, we begin by first providing the background to John Ruggie's appointment as 'Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises'. Second, we provide a brief discussion of the rise of transnational corporations, and of their growing importance in terms of global governance. Third, we introduce the notion of human rights, and note some difficulties associated therewith. Fourth, we (...)
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  • The Duty to Protect: Corporate Complicity, Political Responsibility, and Human Rights Advocacy. [REVIEW]Florian Wettstein - 2010 - Journal of Business Ethics 96 (1):33 - 47.
    Recent years have heralded increasing attention to the role of multinational corporations in regard to human rights violations. The concept of complicity has been of particular interest in this regard. This article explores the conceptual differences between silent complicity in particular and other, more "conventional" forms of complicity. Despite their far-reaching normative implications, these differences are often overlooked.Rather than being connected to specific actions as is the case for other forms of complicity, the concept of silent complicity is tied to (...)
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  • For Better or For Worse: Corporate Responsibility Beyond “Do No Harm”.Florian Wettstein - 2010 - Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (2):275-283.
    ABSTRACT:Do corporations have a duty to promote just institutions? Agreeing with Hsieh’s recent contribution, this article argues that they do. However, contrary to Hsieh, it holds that such a claim cannot be advanced convincingly only by reference to the negative duty to do no harm. Instead, such a duty necessarily must be grounded in positive obligation. In the search of a foundation for a positive duty for corporations to further just institutions, Stephen Kobrin’s notion of “private political authority” offers a (...)
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  • Human Rights in the Oil and Gas Industry: When Are Policies and Practices Enough to Prevent Abuse?Michelle Westermann-Behaylo, Annie Snelson-Powell, Kathleen Rehbein & Tricia Olsen - 2022 - Business and Society 61 (6):1512-1557.
    Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses, continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a (...)
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  • Business and the International Human Rights Regime: A Comparison of UN Initiatives. [REVIEW]Nina Seppala - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2):401 - 417.
    This article argues that the extension of the international regime of human rights to companies has not changed the essentially state-centric nature of the regime. The analysis focuses on three recent United Nations initiatives: (1) 'Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights', (2) the Global Compact, and (3) the work of the UN special representative on business and human rights. The analysis shows that, despite these initiatives, states are the primary holders (...)
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  • Managing CSR Stakeholder Engagement: A New Conceptual Framework. [REVIEW]Linda O’Riordan & Jenny Fairbrass - 2014 - Journal of Business Ethics 125 (1):1-25.
    As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. (...)
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  • Political Stakeholder Theory: The State, Legitimacy, and the Ethics of Microfinance in Emerging Economies.Tricia D. Olsen - 2017 - Business Ethics Quarterly 27 (1):71-98.
    ABSTRACT:How does the state influence stakeholder legitimacy? And how does this process affect an industry’s ethical challenges? Stakeholder theory adopts a forward-looking perspective and seeks to understand how managers can address stakeholders’ claims to improve the firm’s ability to create value. Yet, existing work does not adequately address the role of the state in defining the stakeholder universe nor the implications this may have for subsequent ethical challenges managers face. This article develops a political stakeholder theory by weaving together the (...)
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  • Corporate Responsibility for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Rights in Search of a Remedy?Justine Nolan & Luke Taylor - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 87 (2):433 - 451.
    It is no longer a revelation that companies have some responsibility to uphold human rights. However, delineating the boundaries of the relationship between business and human rights is more vexed. What is it that we are asking corporations to assume responsibility for and how far does that responsibility extend? This article focuses on the extent to which economic, social and cultural rights fall within a corporation's sphere of responsibility. It then analyses how corporations may be held accountable for violations of (...)
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  • Institutionally Driven Moral Conflicts and Managerial Action: Dirty Hands or Permissible Complicity?Rosemarie Monge - 2015 - Journal of Business Ethics 129 (1):161-175.
    This paper examines what managers ought to do when confronted with apparent moral conflicts between their managerial responsibilities and the general requirements of morality, specifically when those conflicts are driven by the institutional environment. I examine Google’s decision to enter the Chinese search engine market as an example of such a conflict. I consider the view that Google’s managers engaged in justifiable moral compromise in making the choice to engage in self-censorship and show how this view depends on the idea (...)
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  • Re-thinking 'Spheres of Responsibility': Business Responsibility for Indirect Harm. [REVIEW]Kate Macdonald - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 99 (4):549 - 563.
    This article considers two prominent, competing approaches to defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first approach advocates extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of the enterprise to encompass broader ' spheres of influence'. The second approach advocates a business ' responsibility to respect* human rights (but not a ' positive* duty to protect, promote or fulfil rights).Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts of business responsibility, this article outlines a modified account, referred to (...)
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  • Re-thinking ‘Spheres of Responsibility’: Business Responsibility for Indirect Harm.Kate Macdonald - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 99 (4):549-563.
    This article considers two prominent, competing approaches to defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first approach advocates extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of the enterprise to encompass broader ‘spheres of influence’. The second approach advocates a business ‘responsibility to respect’ human rights. Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts of business responsibility, this article outlines a modified account, referred to as a framework of ‘spheres of responsibility’. On such an account, business responsibility (...)
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  • Human Rights and Assigned Duties: Implications for Corporations. [REVIEW]Ivar Kolstad - 2008 - Human Rights Review 10 (4):569-582.
    Human rights imply duties. The question is, duties for whom? Without a well-defined scheme for assigning duties correlative to human rights, these rights remain illusory. This paper develops core elements of a general scheme of duty assignment and studies the implications for corporations. A key distinction in such an assignment is between unconditional and conditional duties. Unconditional duties apply to every agent regardless of the conduct of others. Conditional duties reflect a division of moral labour where different tasks are assigned (...)
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  • Stakeholder Engagement: Beyond the Myth of Corporate Responsibility.Michelle Greenwood - 2007 - Journal of Business Ethics 74 (4):315-327.
    The purpose of this article is to transcend the assumption that stakeholder engagement is necessarily a responsible practice. Stakeholder engagement is traditionally seen as corporate responsibility in action. Indeed, in some literatures there exists an assumption that the more an organisation engages with its stakeholders, the more it is responsible. This simple 'more is better' view of stakeholder engagement belies the true complexity of the relationship between engagement and corporate responsibility. Stakeholder engagement may be understood in a variety of different (...)
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  • Human Rights in the Void? Due Diligence in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.Björn Fasterling & Geert Demuijnck - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 116 (4):799-814.
    The ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ (Principles) that provide guidance for the implementation of the United Nations’ ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework (Framework) will probably succeed in making human rights matters more customary in corporate management procedures. They are likely to contribute to higher levels of accountability and awareness within corporations in respect of the negative impact of business activities on human rights. However, we identify tensions between the idea that the respect of human rights is a perfect (...)
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