R. Edward Freeman’s Selected Works on Stakeholder Theory and Business Ethics

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Springer Verlag (2023)
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Abstract

Ed Freeman’s influential ideas on stakeholder theory, business ethics, humanities, and capitalism became foundational in the management field and turned around the mainstream thinking about business. Stakeholder theory developed by Freeman and others posits that business is not as much about profits, but rather about creating value for its stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, financiers, and suppliers. The relationship between a company and its stakeholders is the essence of business and should be of utmost attention to its managers. Managers should avoid resorting to trade-offs by prioritizing one stakeholder group (e.g., shareholders) over the others and strive to run their companies in the interests of all stakeholders. The idea of pursuing the interests of all stakeholders became revolutionary in management and went far beyond the management field, expanding to Law, Health Care, Education, Public Policy and Administration, and Environmental Policy. This book is a collection of Ed Freeman’s most influential and important works on stakeholder theory as well as business ethics, humanities, and capitalism.

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9783031045639   9783031045646   3031045637

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10.1007/978-3-031-04564-6
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Chapters

A New Approach to CSR: Company Stakeholder Responsibility

This paper explores corporate responsibility and argues that if you take a ‘creating value for stakeholders’ approach to business, and if you acknowledge that ethics and values are as important in these relationships as they are in our other relationships with our fellow human beings, then the idea ... see more

Managing for Stakeholders and the Purpose of Business

This paper outlines the history of debates about corporate purpose, calls out some myths that persist in the way that people think about corporate purpose, and introduces a view of business called “managing for stakeholders” that has become increasingly beneficial. Furthermore, the authors argue tha... see more

Enhancing Stakeholder Practice: A Particularized Exploration of Community

Lack of specificity around stakeholder identity remains a serious obstacle to the further development of stakeholder theory and its adoption in actual practice by business managers. Nowhere is this shortcoming more evident than in stakeholder theory’s treatment of the constituency known as “communit... see more

Stakeholder Management: A Case Study of the U.S. Brewers Association and the Container Issue

This paper suggests an approach to the management of the external environment, and attempts to provide a description of a concrete managerial process for the implementation of “stakeholder thinking.” The process described will not help managers manipulate and control external groups. Rather, the pro... see more

Stakeholder Theory: A Libertarian Defense

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments”. We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental ... see more

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Critical Approach

The purpose of this work is to give several reasons why we should give up the idea of corporate social responsibility. Freeman and Liedtka draw on their extensive experience in helping managers think about these ideas, as well as their reading of the management literature on this and other subjects.... see more

Stakeholder Management: Framework and Philosophy

The main focus of this work is to explicate the stakeholder management framework and philosophy in general terms. The author emphasizes how the three levels of analysis - rational, process, and transactional - must be consistent if the stakeholder concept is to make a difference in the way that orga... see more

The Problems That Stakeholder Theory Tries to Solve

We begin this chapter by outlining the problems that stakeholder theory was originally conceptualized to solve and the “basic mechanics” that we believe underlie the development of the theory during the last 30 years. We turn in the next sections to the arguments of Milton Friedman, Michael Jensen, ... see more

Five Challenges to Stakeholder Theory: A Report on Research in Progress

This chapter suggests that there are at least five main challenges to the development of stakeholder theory as it currently stands. We need more research on understanding what counts as the total performance of a business; accounting for stakeholders rather than accounting only for investors; explai... see more

Corporate Citizenship and Community Stakeholders

This work centers on “community stakeholders” and explains the sources and limits of organizational obligations to communities whilst describing a typology of potential relationships that organizations may have with communities. The goal of the paper is to discuss firm-community relationships as one... see more

Theory Building in Strategic Management

The purpose of this work is to articulate the terrain of foundational issues in strategic management research and suggest a framework for understanding and justifying the generation of knowledge in this field. The authors propose a framework with four dimensions: specification of the strategic decis... see more

A Names-and-Faces Approach to Stakeholder Management: How Focusing on Stakeholders as Individuals Can Bring Ethics and Entrepreneurial Strategy Together

Just as the ideas of stakeholder theory, stakeholder management, or stakeholder capitalism approach acceptance as a mainstream core idea in management theory, the authors want to suggest a somewhat radical rethinking of it. They believe that in almost all of its incarnations, stakeholder theory mere... see more

A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Stakeholder Concept

Stakeholder theory has become one of the most important developments in the field of business ethics. While this concept has evolved and gained prominence as a method of integrating ethics into the basic purposes and strategic objectives of the firm, the authors argue that stakeholder theory has ret... see more

A Puzzle About Business Ethics

This short essay presents several ethical dilemmas associated with business and the business world. The authors argue that the denial of the relevance of the simplest moral notion that we are responsible for the effects of our actions on others seems to be the heart of the problem of business. Addit... see more

Business Ethics and Health Care: A Stakeholder Perspective

This article examines the recent controversy in health care delivery about whether it should be conceptualized as a business. The current debate implicitly appeals to a common understanding of business and business practices that is no longer very useful. This common notion, which the authors call “... see more

Managing for Stakeholders: Trade-Offs or Value Creation

One of the central uses of stakeholder theory, in its original form, was as a counterpoint to the idea that corporations should be managed in the interests of shareholders. As the theory developed the debate was often framed in terms of “shareholders vs. stakeholders.” While developing “theories of ... see more

The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions

The purpose of this paper is to enter the conversation about stakeholder theory with the goal of clarifying certain foundational issues. I want to show, along with Boatright, that there is no stakeholder paradox, and that the principle on which such a paradox is built, the Separation Thesis, is nice... see more

Poor People and the Politics of Capitalism

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the current conversation about the relationship between capitalism and the poor assumes a story about business that is shopworn and outmoded. There are assumptions about business, human behavior, and language that are no longer useful in the twenty first ... see more

Business Ethics at the Millennium

Business ethics, as a discipline, appears to be at a crossroads. Down one avenue lies more of the same: mostly philosophers taking what they know of ethics and ethical theory and applying it to business. There is a long tradition of scholars working in the area known as “business and society” or “so... see more

Create a New Story About Business

This essay argues that the first step in making successful companies a reality is for leaders to actively incorporate values and ethics into all of their business decisions and to encourage others to follow their lead. Freeman presents four actions that directors can take to move in the direction of... see more

Bowie’s Ethics: A Pragmatist Perspective

This chapter starts with presenting a reconception of the work of Norman Bowie on managerial ethics. Freeman provides a friendly criticism to the work of Bowie and points to difficulties that result from a non-critical acceptance of the corporate responsibility model as well as issues with an egoist... see more

Understanding Stakeholder Capitalism

The essay begins by discussing the background and evolution of stakeholder capitalism and the effects of the business ethics movement. In an attempt to juxtapose the rhetoric of the right with the rhetoric of the left, Freeman states that a false choice between stockholders and stakeholders has been... see more

Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value Chain

The purpose of this article is to explore the idea of stakeholder capitalism. In particular, Freeman and Liedtka argue that a firm grounding of the idea on four principles, yields a view of business as creating value for stakeholders. To further elaborate stakeholder capitalism, it must be connected... see more

Short Term vs. Long Term: A Skeptical View … and an Alternative

This essay addresses the criticism concerning Freeman’s ideas of stakeholders and ethics and how they can only be applied in a long-term view. Instead, the author redefines the problem: the narrative of business being about making money for shareholders and that everyone involved in a business trans... see more

The Myth of Cowboy Capitalism

The essay explains that viewing business as solely a means for competition presents danger in the market, specifically with the actions of the government attempting to fix this competitiveness. Freeman claims that business is about cooperation among customers, suppliers, employees, financiers, and c... see more

Toward a Life Centered Ethic for Business

This chapter focuses on investigating several methods to view corporations as institutions that simultaneously do the right thing, save the earth, and make money. First, Freeman and Reichart discuss a new version of an old argument by philosopher Blaise Pascal. Then, the authors dive deep into how c... see more

The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Create Value for Stakeholders

The essay explains why society should view social responsibility as an obligation to create value for stakeholders instead of simply making a profit. Moreover, Freeman and Elms establish that there is no single formula for balancing or prioritizing stakeholders, and creating that balance is what man... see more

Responsible Capitalism: Business for the Twenty-First Century

This chapter sketches the tenets of the old narrative of businesses (a focus on profits) more precisely, and highlights some of the partial suggestions for reform. Then, the authors turn to a set of principles in what has come to be called “stakeholder theory,” and suggest that these stakeholder pri... see more

The New Story of Business: Towards a More Responsible Capitalism

This article explains how business is undergoing a conceptual revolution. Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, there have been many new ideas and proposals to make capitalism more responsible. The purpose of this paper is to identify key flaws in the “old story” of capitalism. Thus, six princi... see more

Remoralizing the Debate

This essay begins by describing the many reasons for the current surge of ethical issues, including the blending of cultures and the call for greater moral leadership. Freeman argues that we need to remoralize our conversations about what it means to lead a good life and create good communities. Mor... see more

Let’s Disband The Academy of Management

This essay argues for a new group to emerge – the “Crits” (Committee for Critical Studies in Management) – and calls for the elimination of the “Academy of Management.” The author then goes into the process of becoming a member of “Crits”, including reading more books and seeing ourselves in relatio... see more

The Revolution in Management

This chapter attempts to make ethics and business work together in the context of corporate strategy. The authors reveal that most, if not all, corporate strategies raise ethical issues, and managers and academics have not addressed these issues in ethical terms. Additionally, the chapter explicates... see more

Profit and Other Values: Thick Evaluation in Decision Making

Profit maximizers have reasons to agree with stakeholder theorists that managers may need to consider different values simultaneously in decision making. However, it remains unclear how maximizing a single value can be reconciled with simultaneously considering different values. A solution can neith... see more

Airline Horror Stories Indicate an Ethical Problem

This essay begins by providing examples of unethical customer service stories to exemplify the relevance of ethics in daily life. Freeman then argues that the current wave of interest in business ethics undoubtedly results in more grandiose corporate codes of conduct, statements of values, and gover... see more

The “Business Sucks” Story

The purpose of this essay is to suggest that one of the dominant modes of thought in our society is a profound mistrust and misunderstanding of the role of business. A dominant myth in society is that business occupies the moral low ground, separate from ethics or a moral point of view. This positio... see more

Business as a Human Enterprise: Implications for Education

This chapter begins with a brief, stylized history of the business academy, primarily in the United States, where it finds its most dominant form and, historically, its largest audience. The authors juxtapose this history with the tremendous changes that have occurred in business over the last 40–50... see more

Ethics and the Algorithm

This essay opens with a description of how advances in information technology have changed our lives, specifically in the case of data and tracking consumer behavior online. Then, the authors suggest that society must begin to have conversations concerning ethics and values in the technological worl... see more

Values and Poetic Organizations: Beyond Value Fit Toward Values Through Conversation

In the midst of greed, corruption, the economic crash and the general disillusionment of business, current conceptions of leadership, organizational values, and authenticity are being questioned. In this article, we fill a prior research gap by directly exploring the intersection of these three conc... see more

Healthy Tension Between Business and News Media

This essay establishes the historically bad reputation of business and the tension between business and the news media that often leads to conflict and debate. The author suggests that this conflict is a positive sign of health in a free society. Furthermore, Freeman discusses the “personality probl... see more

Values and the Foundations of Strategic Management

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of values in strategic management. We discuss recent criticisms of the concept of strategy and argue that the concept of value helps reconcile these criticisms with traditional models of strategy. We show that Andrews’ model of corporate strategy righ... see more

Leveraging the Creative Arts in Business Ethics Teaching

The purpose of this paper is to describe a way of teaching business ethics using the creative arts, especially literature and theater. By drawing on these disciplines for both method and texts, we can more easily make the connection to business as a fully human activity, concerned with how meaning i... see more

Business As a Humanity: Epilogue

This chapter begins by examining the history of business schools and establishing the presence of three important phases: the formative period, the scientific / modern period, and the porter / peters era. In the second section of the essay, the author suggests a reorientation of professional schools... see more

Which Rules Are Worth Breaking?

This essay discusses the concept of “creative destruction” within different business industries, specifically the example of Uber’s string of controversies that led to a mass exodus of senior executives. The authors reveal that there is a creative upside to cheating as demonstrated by the research d... see more

Values, Authenticity, and Responsible Leadership

The recent financial crisis has prompted questioning of our basic ideas about capitalism and the role of business in society. As scholars are calling for “responsible leadership” to become more of the norm, organizations are being pushed to enact new values, such as “responsibility” and “sustainabil... see more

Business Ethics: A Literary View

There has been a recent surge of interest in business ethics by managers and scholars alike. The purpose of this essay is to diagnose this recent interest and to suggest an alternative way of understanding the place of ethics in business (The author would like to thank Dan Ortiz, Michael Cornfield, ... see more

The Impossibility of the Separation Thesis: A Response to Joakim Sandberg

Distinguishing “business” concerns from “ethical” values is not only an unfruitful and meaningless task, it is also an impossible endeavor. Nevertheless, fruitless attempts to separate facts from values produce detrimental second-order effects, both for theory and practice, and should therefore be a... see more

Business School Research: Some Preliminary Suggestions

This chapter argues that business schools yield 3 problems: the problem of research, the normative problem, and the problem of the use of knowledge. The authors cite the heart of the issue as the “separation fallacy”, most powerfully seen as the exclusion of ethics from business judgments, but gener... see more

The Ethics of Greenmail

In the contemporary flurry of hostile corporate takeover activity, the ethics of the practice of greenmail have been called into question. The authors provide an account of greenmail in parallel with Daniel Ellsberg’s conception of blackmail, as consisting of two conditions: a threat condition and a... see more

Practicing Human Dignity: Ethical Lessons from Commedia dell’Arte and Theater

The paper considers two main cases of how the creative arts can inform a greater appreciation of human dignity. The first case explores a form of theater, Commedia dell’Arte, that has deep roots in Italian culture. The second recounts a set of theater exercises done with very minimal direction or se... see more

The Relevance of Richard Rorty to Management Research

This essay introduces the work of Richard Rorty via a brief biography, and concentrates on the four Rortian themes. Here, Freeman presents a pragmatic vision for business and theories about business in hopes of stimulating more reading and discussion of Rorty’s work. Furthermore, the chapter suggest... see more

Teaching Business Ethics in the Age of Madoff

This essay provides an overview of the foundational history of business ethics, especially from an academic research standpoint. The authors also cover four popular misconceptions perpetuated by business schools and claim that ethics is often bolted onto a curriculum that does not encourage students... see more

Unethical, Neurotic, or Both? A Psychoanalytic Account of Ethical Failures Within Organizations

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoa... see more

Creating Ties That Bind

The work of Donaldson and Dunfee (Ties That Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics,1999) offers an example of how normative and descriptive approaches to business ethics can be integrated. We suggest that to be truly integrative, however, the theory should explore the processes by whic... see more

Business, Ethics and Society: A Critical Agenda

In recent papers and presentations we have satirized what the field of business and society has become (R. Edward Freeman, “Let’s Disband the Academy of Management,” 1989 SIM Division Chair Address, and R. Edward Freeman and Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr., “Business, Ethics and Society: A Critical Approach,... see more

A Pragmatist Approach to Business Ethics Research

The purpose of this chapter is to give an introductory account of the main tenets of a philosophical approach called “pragmatism”. The authors provide a brief historical view of the development of pragmatism as well as a description of some central pragmatist ideas. The chapter also establishes why ... see more

Orwell and Organizations

This article reexamines Orwell’s doctrine in light of recent developments in the theory and practice of management of large organizations. The authors argue that Orwell’s warnings loom large for both theorists and practitioners of management, organizational theory, and administrative science. Moreov... see more

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Robert Edward Freeman
University of Virginia

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