This paper provides an overview of the contemporary debate on the concepts and definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability (CS). The conclusions, based on historical perspectives, philosophical analyses, impact of changing contexts and situations and practical considerations, show that "one solution fits all"-definition for CS(R) should be abandoned, accepting various and more specific definitions matching the development, awareness and ambition levels of organizations.

This paper explores the relationship between accountability, trust and corporate reputation building. Increasing numbers of corporations are mobilising themselves to put more and more information out into the public domain as a way of communicating with stakeholders. Corporate social accounting and stakeholder engagement is happening on an unprecedented scale. Rather than welcoming such initiatives, academics have been quick to pick faults with contemporary social auditing and reporting, claiming that in its current form it is not about demonstrating accountability at all, (...) but rather about building corporate reputation. Academics argue that ‘accountability should hurt’, that if accountability is an enjoyable process, then the organisation isn’t doing it right. For organisations that are currently engaging with stakeholders and ostensibly becoming more transparent about their corporate social performance, this kind of critique is likely to be bewildering. This paper argues that central to the notion of accountability and to contemporary social accounting practice is the concept of trust. Accountability is based upon a distrust of corporate management, whereas corporate reputation building is about strategically seeking to establish trust in stakeholder relationships in order to negate formal accountability requirements. Using a split trust continuum, the paper seeks to explain and synthesise what seem to be two very different paradigms of organisational transparency. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between accountability, trust and corporate reputation building. Increasing numbers of corporations are mobilising themselves to put more and more information out into the public domain as a way of communicating with stakeholders. Corporate social accounting and stakeholder engagement is happening on an unprecedented scale. Rather than welcoming such initiatives, academics have been quick to pick faults with contemporary social auditing and reporting, claiming that in its current form it is not about demonstrating accountability at all, (...) but rather about building corporate reputation. Academics argue that ‘accountability should hurt’, that if accountability is an enjoyable process, then the organisation isn’t doing it right. For organisations that are currently engaging with stakeholders and ostensibly becoming more transparent about their corporate social performance, this kind of critique is likely to be bewildering. This paper argues that central to the notion of accountability and to contemporary social accounting practice is the concept of trust. Accountability is based upon a distrust of corporate management, whereas corporate reputation building is about strategically seeking to establish trust in stakeholder relationships in order to negate formal accountability requirements. Using a split trust continuum, the paper seeks to explain and synthesise what seem to be two very different paradigms of organisational transparency. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has become a central issue in the literature on business ethics / business and society. There are, however, a number of problems with stakeholder theory as currently understood. Among these are: 1) the lack of a coherent justificatory framework, 2) the problem of adjudicating between stakeholders, and 3) the problem of stakeholder identification. In this essay, I propose that a possible source of obligations to stakeholders is the principle of fairness (or fair play) as discussed in the political (...) philosophic literature of Rawls, Simmons, and Cullity among others. The principle of fairness states that, “Whenever persons or groups of persons voluntarily accept the benefits of a mutually beneficial scheme of co-operation requiring sacrifice or contribution on the parts of the participants and there exists the possibility of free-riding, there exist obligations of fairness on the part of these persons or groups to co-operate in proportion to the benefits accepted.” In this essay I discuss the gaps in the current stakeholder literature, elucidate and defend a principle of fairness that fills the gap, compare the fairness model to other similar models of business ethics, and draw some conclusions for the future of stakeholder theory. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue consists of some arguments that are intended to fold the concepts 'ethics' and 'politics' into one another. The aim of this exercise is to take business ethics to task for having a narrowly 'ethical' view of its ambitions. Instead, I propose that business ethics needs to embrace political theory in addition to the moral philosophy that it has treated as canonical. I argue that such an enlargement will encourage those who currently practise business ethics (...) to ask broader questions about the current legitimacy crisis facing market managerialism, and also seriously to consider alternative forms of organization and exchange. The paper concludes with a short review of the rest of the issue. (shrink)

Abstract:The organization is importantly different from both the nation-state and the individual and hence needs its own ethical models and theories, distinct from political and moral theory. To develop a case for organizational ethics, this paper advances arguments in three directions. First, it highlights the growing role of organizations and their distinctive attributes. Second, it illuminates the incongruities between organizations and moral and political philosophy. Third, it takes these incongruities, as well as organizations’ distinctive attributes, as a starting point for (...) suggesting an agenda for an ethics of organizations. (shrink)

This article begins with an explanation of how moral development for organizations has parallels to Kohlberg's categorization of the levels of individual moral development. Then the levels of organizational moral development are integrated into the literature on corporate social performance by relating them to different stakeholder orientations. Finally, the authors propose a model of organizational moral development that emphasizes the role of top management in creating organizational processes that shape the organizational and institutional components of corporate social performance. This article (...) represents one approach to linking the distinct streams of business ethics and business-and-society research into a more complete understanding of how managers and firms address complex ethical and social issues. (shrink)

In this theoretical paper, motives for CSR are considered. An underlying assumption is that the commercial imperative is not the sole driver of CSR decision-making in private sector companies, but that the formal adoption and implementation of CSR by corporations could be associated with the changing personal values of individual managers. These values may find expression through the opportunity to exercise discretion, which may arise in various ways. It is suggested that in so far as CSR initiatives represent individuals' values, (...) so the responsibility in evidence is less obviously corporate. Our emphasis on personal initiative is intended to counter a tendency to view the corporation as the agent, and may serve to remind us that individuals can, indeed, make a difference. (shrink)

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the opinions (...) of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A’s sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective. (shrink)

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the opinions (...) of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A’s sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective. (shrink)

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 nicely self-serving to business and ethics academics. If we give up such a thesis we find there is no stakeholder theory but that stakeholder theory becomes a genre that is quite rich. (...) It becomes one of many ways to blend together the central concepts of business with those of ethics. Rather than take each concept of business singly or the whole of “business” together and hold it to the light of ethical standards, we can use the stakeholder concept to create more fine-grained analyses that combine business and ethics; or more simply, we can tell many more, and more interesting, stories about business. (shrink)

This paper offers directions for the continuing dialogue between business ethicists and environmental philosophers. I argue that a theory of corporate social responsibility must be consistent with, if not derived from, a model of sustainable economics rather than the prevailing neoclassical model of market economics. I use environmental examples to critique both classical and neoclassical models of corporate social responsibility and sketch the alternative model of sustainable development. After describing some implications of this model at the level of individual firms (...) and industries, I offer an ethical justification of the sustainability alternative that is derived from the same values that underlie traditional market economics. (shrink)

Abstract:The aim of this paper is to create a framework which can serve as a guide to the understanding of organizational ethicality. This is done by linking ethical and organizational theory. Organizational ethicality is about “being” as well as “doing”: relevant ethical theory is therefore both substantive (agent-centred, concerned with the “good”) as well as procedural (act-centred, concerned with the “right” in the sense of the moral or just thing to do). The ethical theories of Alasdair MacIntyre and Jurgen Habermas, (...) as representatives of these two traditions, are mapped onto a framework which characterises organizations as assemblages of practices supported by a climate embedded within an organizational culture. Organizational practice is articulated and given meaning within a discourse of “sensemaking” in which narrative creates space-time links between people and events. Within that same communicative climate practices are evaluated and decisions taken. This theoretical framework is specified in such a way as to highlight the parallels with the ethical theories of MacIntyre, who uses notions of practice, tradition and the narrative unity of moral experience to create an ethical theory of the “good,” and Habermas, who spells out the process of moral argumentation by which consensus on the “just” or “right” is reached. Some possibilities for further research are suggested at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Communism lost the Cold War, not to pure free market capitalism, but to a range of diverse economic systems based onvarying degrees and forms of social regulation of the market. Such social regulation was possible because both polities and economies were primarily national. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been rapid globalization of the economy, but not of effective social regulation. Incipient global political institutions are too weak to regulate global corporate power, while national governments no longer (...) have sufficient reach to regulate large multinationals. Corporate self-regulation has begun, but only haltingly and mostly ineffectively.While global prosperity has risen dramatically in recent decades, not everyone has progressed since the end of the Cold War. Since 1990 some 55 countries have had declining per capita incomes, while inequality has risen within and between countries. It is too soon to say whether global capitalism will be saved from itself by regulation, just as American national capitalism may have been saved by the New Deal reforms it opposed. As Pope John Paul II has warned, the world must not succumb to a "radical capitalist ideology" which "blindly entrusts" social problems to market forces. (shrink)

Some years ago Ed Freeman and William Evan wrote an article offering a Kantian stakeholder theory of corporate responsibility. Ed was kind enough to allow Tom Beauchamp and me to publish that previously unpublished piece in the second edition of Ethical Theory and Business. That article has appeared in every subsequent edition. But a Kantian theory of stakeholder relationships is not, I believe, a complete Kantian theory of the modem corporation. I believe Ed originally intended to expand that paper into (...) a larger project but Ed’s philosophical interest in pragmatism has distanced him from Kantianism and his writings in stakeholder theory have gone in a different direction. Indeed in this postmodem feminist anti-foundationalist age, Kant is very much out of fashion. Since I am always out of fashion I had no trouble promising Ed I would complete the Kantian piece of the project. This essay is the condensed version and a partial fulfillment of my promise. A Kantian always keeps his promises. (shrink)