Moralizing the Corporation
Moralizing the Corporation

Author: Boris Holzer

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1849806810

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Each chapter in this book by itself is a worthy contribution to the existing research on the TNC in a globalised world. In-spire, Journal of Law, Politics and Societies The argument of this book is so powerful and convincing because it focuses on global subpolitics: the corporate (ir)responsibility, the power of its critics, and the consuming citizen. This shift of perspectives and its sophistication makes Moralizing the Corporation a must-read for anyone interested in the dynamics of globalization. Ulrich Beck, University of Munich, Germany Moralizing the Corporation offers a multi-disciplinary analysis of the conflicts between transnational corporations and transnational advocacy groups. The book is theoretically sophisticated and full of interesting and nuanced empirical findings that generate new knowledge about the relationship between politics and markets. It views transnational corporations as quasi-public institutions and explains their vulnerability to the non-state authority of political consumers and protest groups. Holzer develops theory on transnational subpolitics and corporate reflexivity and should be read by scholars and activists alike. Michele Micheletti, University of Stockholm, Sweden This insightful book examines how transnational corporations respond to the challenges of anti-corporate activism and political consumerism. In prominent cases involving major corporations such as Nestlé, Nike and Royal Dutch/Shell, transnational activists have successfully mobilized public opinion and consumers against alleged corporate misdemeanours. Campaigns and boycott calls can harm a corporation s image but, as this book points out, public scrutiny also gives corporations the opportunity to present themselves as responsible and accountable corporate citizens who subscribe to the very norms and values propagated by the activists. Academics, scholars and postgraduate students in international business management, organization studies, social movement studies and political sociology will find this book invaluable.

The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency
The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency

Author: David Rönnegard

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-12

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 9401797560

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It is uncontroversial that corporations are legal agents that can be held legally responsible, but can corporations also be moral agents that are morally responsible? Part one of this book explicates the most prominent theories of corporate moral agency and provides a detailed debunking of why corporate moral agency is a fallacy. This implies that talk of corporate moral responsibilities, beyond the mere metaphorical, is essentially meaningless. Part two takes the fallacy of corporate moral agency as its premise and spells out its implications. It shows how prominent normative theories within Corporate Social Responsibility, such as Stakeholder Theory and Social Contract Theory, rest on an implicit assumption of corporate moral agency. In this metaphysical respect such theories are untenable. In order to provide a more robust metaphysical foundation for corporations the book explicates the development of the corporate legal form in the US and UK, which displays how the corporation has come to have its current legal attributes. This historical evolution shows that the corporation is a legal fiction created by the state in order to serve both public and private goals. The normative implication for corporate accountability is that citizens of democratic states ought to primarily make calls for legal enactments in order to hold the corporate legal instruments accountable to their preferences.

Moralizing the Corporation
Moralizing the Corporation

Author: Boris Holzer

Publisher: Edward Elgar Pub

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9781848447592

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'Moralizing the Corporation offers a multi-disciplinary analysis of the conflicts between transnational corporations and transnational advocacy groups. The book is theoretically sophisticated and full of interesting and nuanced empirical findings that generate new knowledge about the relationship between politics and markets. It views transnational corporations as quasi-public institutions and explains their vulnerability to the "non-state authority" of political consumers and protest groups. Holzer develops theory on transnational subpolitics and corporate reflexivity and should be read by scholars and activists alike.' - Michele Micheletti, University of Stockholm, Sweden

The Moral Responsibility of Firms
The Moral Responsibility of Firms

Author: Eric W. Orts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0192520563

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Individuals are generally considered morally responsible for their actions. Who or what is responsible when those individuals become part of business organizations? Can we correctly ascribe moral responsibility to the organization itself? If so, what are the grounds for this claim and to what extent do the individuals also remain morally responsible? If not, does moral responsibility fall entirely to specific individuals within the organization and can they be readily identified? A perennial question in business ethics has concerned the extent to which business organizations can be correctly said to have moral responsibilities and obligations. In philosophical terms, this is a question of "corporate moral agency." Whether firms can be said to be moral agents and to have the capacity for moral responsibility has significant practical consequences. In most legal systems in the world, business firms are recognized as "persons" with the ability to own property, to maintain and defend lawsuits, and to self-organize governance structures. To recognize that these "business persons" can also act morally or immorally as organizations, however, would justify the imposition of other legal constraints and normative expectations on organizations. In the criminal law, for example, the idea that an organized firm may itself have criminal culpability is accepted in many countries (such as the United States) but rejected in others (such as Germany). This book collects new contributions by leading business scholars in business ethics, philosophy, and related disciplines to extend our understanding of the "moral responsibility of firms."

Ethics in Practice
Ethics in Practice

Author: Kenneth Richmond Andrews

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9780875842073

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Ethics in Practice includes 21 Harvard Business Review articles by corporate leaders of companies like Cadbury-Schweppes, Standard Oil of Ohio, Phillips, and Morgan Stanley, and from well-known observers like Robert Coles and Albert Z. Carr. The dilemmas they investigate represent painful choices for managers: whether to divest operations in South Africa, how to handle the "rogue division" whose practices compromise the whole company, how to curb a slide into price-fixing in an overcrowded market, and other issues. Includes extensive commentary by Kenneth Andrews. A Harvard Business Review Book.

Corporate Moral Agency and the Role of the Corporation in Society
Corporate Moral Agency and the Role of the Corporation in Society

Author: David Ronnegard

Publisher:

Published: 2007-06

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9781847535801

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PhD thesis, London School of Economics: The thesis is an analysis of the corporation in society which spans the disciplines of Ethics, Law, Economics and Political Philosophy. Part One challenges the position, generally accepted in Business Ethics, that a corporation qualifies as a moral agent. The thesis analyses the most prominent theories of corporate moral agency and concludes that the corporation itself is not a moral agent. The thesis argues that attributions of moral responsibility to corporations are an elliptical way of referring to the responsibility of individuals. Part Two traces the historical development of the corporate legal form in English and American law and argues that the corporate form is a legal agent. The thesis takes issue with the Corporate Social Responsibility movement and argues that many of its prescriptions rest on a mistaken premise of corporate moral agency. Further, the thesis suggests that many CSR issues are better addressed through legal enactments by government.

The Moralization of the Markets
The Moralization of the Markets

Author: Nico Stehr

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2011-12-31

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 1412815878

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Nothing affects the modern economy (and society) more than decisions made in the market place, especially, but not only, decisions made by consumers. Although it is not startling to suggest that decisions made in production are affected by choices consumers make, consumers have long been viewed, not only by academic economists, as individual, isolated rational actors that make or refrain from purchases purely on the basis of narrow financial considerations. Markets are not and never were morally neutral. Market relations have always had an often taken-for-granted moral underpinning. The moralization of the markets refers to the dissolution and replacement of the conventional moral underpinnings of market conduct, for example, in the music market, financial markets, and corporate governance. It further implies not only the heightened importance of new ethical precepts, but the significant change in the role of moral ideals in market behavior. These profound transformations of economic conduct are accompanied and co-determined by societal conflicts. The moralization of markets represents thus a new stage in the social evolution of markets. The book is divided into four parts, in which the twelve chapters, written by contributors from different social science disciplines, deal with the context of the moralization of the markets; the major social institutions; and present case studies that examine European and American attitudes and behavior towards tobacco and GMO; expansion of the private and ethics in business; and how workers respond to the new corporate norms. This volume will be of interest to sociologists, economists, social scientists, and the general consumer alike.