Business Ethics Quarterly 19 (1):57-85 (2009)
Abstract |
The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the instrumental perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in practice and theory by relying on sociological analyses of a well known organization: the Italian Mafia. Legal businesses might share features of the Mafia, such as the propensity to exploit a governance vacuum in society, a strong organizational identity that demarcates the inside from the outside, and an extreme profit motive. Instrumental CSR practices have the power to accelerate a firm’s transition to Mafia status through its own pathologies. The boundaries of such instrumentalism are explored and lessons for future CSR research derived, with specific emphasis on a firm’s social and normative embeddedness, taking into account the inherent challenge of regulating corporate behaviour in the global economy
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Keywords | Applied Philosophy Business and Professional Ethics Social Science |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
ISBN(s) | 1052-150X |
DOI | 10.5840/beq20091913 |
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References found in this work BETA
Corporate Social Responsibility Theories: Mapping the Territory. [REVIEW]Elisabet Garriga & Domènec Melé - 2004 - Journal of Business Ethics 53 (1-2):51-71.
The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions.R. Edward Freeman - 1994 - Business Ethics Quarterly 4 (4):409-421.
Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis.Kenneth E. Goodpaster - 1991 - Business Ethics Quarterly 1 (1):53-73.
Enron Ethics (Or: Culture Matters More Than Codes). [REVIEW]Ronald R. Sims & Johannes Brinkmann - 2003 - Journal of Business Ethics 45 (3):243 - 256.
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Citations of this work BETA
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.
The Normative Justification of Integrative Stakeholder Engagement: A Habermasian View on Responsible Leadership.Moritz Patzer, Christian Voegtlin & Andreas Georg Scherer - 2018 - Business Ethics Quarterly 28 (3):325-354.
The Social License to Operate.Geert Demuijnck & Björn Fasterling - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 136 (4):675-685.
Positive Economics and the Normativistic Fallacy: Bridging the Two Sides of CSR.Philipp Schreck, Dominik van Aaken & Thomas Donaldson - 2013 - Business Ethics Quarterly 23 (2):297-329.
Neither Bad Apple nor Bad Barrel: How the Societal Context Impacts Unethical Behavior in Organizations.Michael Gonin, Guido Palazzo & Ulrich Hoffrage - 2012 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 21 (1):31-46.
View all 17 citations / Add more citations
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