In this paper the exclusive focus on large firms in the field of business ethics is challenged. Some of the idiosyncrasies of small firms are explained, and links are made between these and potential ethical issues. A review of the existing literature on ethics in small firms demonstrates the lack of appropriate research, so that to date we can draw no firm conclusions in relation to ethics in the small firm. Recommendations are made as to the way forward for small (...) firm business ethics research. Questions for investigation are suggested using micro, meso and macro perspectives. Much exploratory work needs to be done to lay the groundwork for this important area of social and commercial research in the future. (shrink)

This paper argues that multinational corporations face levels of environmental and social responsibility higher than their national counterparts. Drawing on the literatures of stakeholder salience, corporate reputation management, and evidence from the confrontation between Shell and Greenpeace over the Brent Spar, in 1995, two mechanisms – international reputation side effects, and foreign stakeholder salience – are identified and their contribution in creating an environment more restrictive, in terms of environmental and social responsibility, is elaborated on. The paper concludes with discussing (...) the links of the work presented here with a number of ongoing debates within the filed of international business ethics, and the managerial implications of the two mechanisms identified. (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)

In this paper the exclusive focus on large firms in the field of business ethics is challenged. Some of the idiosyncrasies of small firms are explained, and links are made between these and potential ethical issues. A review of the existing literature on ethics in small firms demonstrates the lack of appropriate research, so that to date we can draw no firm conclusions in relation to ethics in the small firm. Recommendations are made as to the way forward for small (...) firm business ethics research. Questions for investigation are suggested using micro, meso and macro perspectives. Much exploratory work needs to be done to lay the groundwork for this important area of social and commercial research in the future. (shrink)

In the mid-1960s and 1970s the field of business ethics saw a basic shift in emphasis from personal responsibility to corporate responsibility. While the notion of corporate responsibility has come to be a dominant concept in the field of business ethics since that time, it is a contested concept that admits of a range of conceptions. A concern underlying this paper is that many of these conceptions are less adequate than they might be. This paper has two overlapping goals. First, (...) it seeks to elaborate a more adequate conception of corporate responsibility by drawing upon critical theory to distinguish three different normative realms (viz., legitimacy, morality and ethics). Second, the paper attempts to indicate from a critical theory perspective the nature of corporate responsibilities in each of these realms. The paper begins with a short introduction to German critical theory and an explanation of the different normative realms. The following three sections elaborate in turn the responsibilities of corporations in each on the three normative realms. Finally, the conclusion attempts to indicate some of the advantages of a critical theory conception of corporate responsibility. (shrink)

Amongst a backdrop of debate regarding Codes of Conduct and their raison d’etre this paper provides a detailed summary of the management systems used by multinational enterprises in the Code implementation process. It puts forth a framework for analysis based on the elements of – the creation of a vision, the development of understanding and ability, integration into operations and feedback, improvement and remediation – and then applies it across the sports footwear, apparel and retail sectors in order to firstly, (...) demonstrate the complexities of the Code implementation process and secondly, to provide useful examples and lessons-learned to companies, policy-makers and others interested in implementing their own Code of Conduct or who are actively involved in this field. (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)

Within a year of each other, three one-volume general dictionaries of philosophy have recently appeared; when our future colleagues in philosophy look back on the 1990s they may well think of it as the decade of reference works. But however productive these years may prove to be in this genre, clearly visible somewhere around the top of the heap will be this handy, useful, entertaining, and instructive contribution from Simon Blackburn. Its two immediate competitors are the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, (...) edited by Robert Audi, and the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich. No detailed comparison will be attempted here, but two points stand out as obviously giving Blackburn’s dictionary a rather different use and flavor from the others: while containing a closely comparable number of entries, it is distinctly shorter and handier in format; and it has all been written by a single author. (shrink)

When an organization is pressured to respond to moral expressions in capital, consumer and labor markets, it faces a dilemma of how to respond. Should Shell have given in to Greenpeace in deciding how to dispose of the Brent Spar Oil Rig? Should Cracker Barrel give in to pressures to fire homosexual employees? Firms should consider the nature of the moral expressions pressuring them in deciding how to respond. Moral expressions can be divided into three descriptive categories: Benign, Disputed and (...) Problematic. Each carries different implications for corporate action and in some cases will justify corporate resistance to moral expressions by stakeholders. In order to appropriately respond to moral pressures, firms should first engage in a process of discovery aimed at identifying moral pressures relevant to the firmös missions and objectives and then engage in a process of justification concerning their responses. Such a conclusion is consistent with important trends of contemporary thought in ethics and political philosophy and is strongly supported by Kantian analysis. (shrink)

Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy provides in one volume the major writings from nearly 2,500 years of political and moral philosophy. The most comprehensive collection of its kind, it moves from classical thought (Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero) through medieval views (Augustine, Aquinas) to modern perspectives (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Adam Smith, Kant). It includes major nineteenth-century thinkers (Hegel, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche) as well as twentieth-century theorists (Rawls, Nozick, Nagel, Foucault, Habermas, Nussbaum). Also included are numerous essays from (...) The Federalist Papers and a variety of notable documents and addresses, among them Pericles' Funeral Oration, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and speeches by Edmund Burke, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Dewey, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The readings are substantial or complete texts, not fragments. An especially valuable feature of this volume is that the works of each author are introduced with a substantive and engaging essay by a leading contemporary authority. These introductions include Richard Kraut on Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Cicero; Paul J. Weithman on Augustine and Aquinas; Roger D. Masters on Machiavelli; Jean Hampton on Hobbes; Steven B. Smith on Spinoza and Hegel; A. John Simmons on Locke; Joshua Cohen on Rousseau and Rawls; Donald W. Livingston on Hume; Charles L. Griswold, Jr., on Smith; Bernard E. Brown on Hamilton and Madison; Jeremy Waldron on Bentham and Mill; Paul Guyer on Kant; Richard Miller on Marx and Engels; Richard Schacht on Nietzsche; Thomas Christiano on Nozick; John Deigh on Nagel; Thomas A. McCarthy on Foucault and Habermas; and Eva Feder Kittay on Nussbaum. Offering unprecedented breadth of coverage, Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy is an ideal text for courses in social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, or surveys in Western civilization. (shrink)

When a person performs or fails to perform a morally significant action, we sometimes think that a particular kind of response is warranted. Praise and blame are perhaps the most obvious forms this reaction might take. For example, one who encounters a car accident may be regarded as worthy of praise for having saved a child from inside the burning car, or alternatively, one may be regarded as worthy of blame for not having used one's mobile phone to call for (...) help. To regard such agents as worthy of one of these reactions is to ascribe moral responsibility to them on the basis of what they have done or left undone. (These are examples of other-directed ascriptions of responsibility. The reaction might also be self-directed, e.g., one can recognize oneself to be blameworthy). Thus, to be morally responsible for something, say an action, is to be worthy of a particular kind of reaction —praise, blame, or something akin to these—for having performed it.[1.. (shrink)