scholarly journals The Moral Duty to Love One’s Stakeholders

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muel Kaptein
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Work Setting ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Leadership Theories ◽  
Moral Concept ◽  
The Real

AbstractMuch has been written about the general moral duty to love one’s neighbors. In this article, I explore the specific application of this moral duty in the work setting. I argue from a secular perspective that individuals have the moral duty to love their stakeholders. Loving one’s stakeholders is an affective valuing of the stake-related values these stakeholders pursue and as such is the real recognition of one’s stakeholders as stakeholders and of oneself as a stakeholder of one’s stakeholders. This moral concept of stakeholder love offers promising contributions to stakeholder theory, leadership theories, and ethical theories in general and business ethics theories in particular.

scholarly journals Is there Such a Thing as a Good Profit? Taking Conventional Ethics Seriously

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marja K. Svanberg ◽  
Carl F. C. Svanberg
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Profit Motive ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper will show that if we take conventional ethics seriously, then there is no moral justification for business profits. To show this, we explore three conventional ethical theories, namely Christian ethics, Kantian ethics and Utilitarian ethics. Since they essentially reject self-interest, they also reject the essence of business: the profit motive. To illustrate the relationship, we will concretize how the anti-egoist perspective expresses itself in business and business ethics. In business, we look at what many businesses regard as proof of their virtue. In business ethics, we look at what many business ethicists say about the relationship between morality and self-interest and, thus, the profit motive. Ultimately, we will argue that conventional ethics can, at most, only justify the means of business (i.e., aspects of running a business), but not the end of business (i.e., profits).

scholarly journals Incumbent Stakeholder Management Performance and New Entry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Laplume ◽  
Kent Walker ◽  
Zhou Zhang ◽  
Xin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Stakeholder Management ◽  
Stakeholder Group ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Management Performance ◽  
Entrepreneurial Entry ◽  
Very High ◽  
New Entry

Abstract Instrumental stakeholder theory seeks to explain how managing stakeholders effectively can yield competitive advantage for incumbent firms. We extend instrumental stakeholder theory to explain and predict future competition operationalized as new entrepreneurial entries. Our study is among the first to empirically examine the relationships between aggregate stakeholder management performance and the entrepreneurial entries of individuals. Using a combined U.S. dataset from 2003 to 2013 from the Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini (KLD) Index, Compustat, and Kauffman’s Entrepreneurship Survey, we find support for three hypotheses. First, higher levels of stakeholder management performance are related to lower rates of entrepreneurial entry. Second, a curvilinear relationship exists between stakeholder management performance and entrepreneurial entry, where both low and very high stakeholder management performance increase entrepreneurial entry. Third, the greater the variance in stakeholder management performance across stakeholders, the more entrepreneurial entry. Our findings suggest that managing for stakeholders can help to avoid future competition. We add an entrepreneurship lens to the business ethics of stakeholder theory showing how incumbent stakeholder management performance shapes opportunities for entrepreneurs, a largely neglected stakeholder group.

scholarly journals Is There Opportunity Without Stakeholders? A Stakeholder Theory Critique and Development of Opportunity-Actualization

2021 ◽  
pp. 104225872110433
Author(s):  
Stratos Ramoglou ◽  
Stelios Zyglidopoulos ◽  
Foteini Papadopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Opportunity Theory ◽  
The Real ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Entrepreneurial Action ◽  
Business Venturing

How can stakeholder theory contribute to opportunity theory? We suggest that stakeholder theory affords appropriate theoretical lenses for grounding the opportunity-actualization perspective more firmly within the real-world constraints of business venturing. Actualization departs from a strong focus on entrepreneurial agency to conceptualize how pre-existing environmental conditions determine what entrepreneurial action can achieve. We explain that stakeholder theory can strengthen the outward-looking orientation of actualization by (1) bringing the entirety of stakeholders centre-stage, beyond a narrow focus on market stakeholders, and (2) stressing the importance of noneconomic considerations for the actualization of economic opportunities. Our theorization culminates in the concept of ‘strategic opportunity thinking’ (SOT). We conceptualize SOT as a way of protecting entrepreneurs from the blind-to-stakeholders mindset that either sleepwalks them into the territory of non-opportunity or prevents them from the actualization of real yet difficult-to-actualize opportunities in the absence of stakeholder-centric thinking.

scholarly journals Effects of social, environmental, and institutional factors on sustainability report assurance: evidence from European countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1059-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Simoni ◽  
Laura Bini ◽  
Marco Bellucci
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Signaling Theory ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Legitimacy Theory ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Sustainability Report

Purpose The purpose of this study is to extend existing knowledge on the determinants of sustainability report (SR) assurance practices. Four different theories – stakeholder theory, institutional theory, signaling theory and legitimacy theory – are used to formulate several hypotheses regarding the main factors that can influence a company’s decision to assure its SRs. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 417 listed organizations based in different European countries over five years, the effects of stakeholder commitment, country orientation toward sustainability, firm environmental performance and business ethics controversies on the decision to assure SRs are assessed. Findings The results show that a company’s decision to assure its SRs is motivated by the need to maintain good relations with its stakeholders (which is in line with stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory), as well as by the willingness to signal their sustainability performance (which is in line with signaling theory) and to gain legitimacy. On the contrary, business ethics controversies do not seem to be relevant to a company’s assurance practices. Originality/value This paper provides new insights into the influence that social, environmental and institutional factors have on assurance strategies. New factors that previous research does not investigate – environmental performance, business ethics controversies and corporate governance – are tested. Factors that are already investigated in the literature are considered from an original perspective of introducing alternative measures (e.g. for the scope of national sustainability policies).

Business Ethics, Stakeholder Theory, and the Ethics of Healthcare Organizations

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
PATRICIA H. WERHANE
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Professional Codes ◽  
Professional Codes Of Ethics

Until recently (before managed care), business issues in healthcare organizations (HCOs) were relatively insulated from clinical issues, for several reasons. The hospital at earlier stages of its development operated on a combination of charitable and equitable premises, allowing for providing care to be separated from financial support. Physicians, who were primarily responsible for clinical care, constituted an independent power nexus within the hospital and were governed by their own professional codes of ethics. In exchange for a great deal of control over their conditions of practice, they took almost complete responsibility for patient care. Thus clinical and professional ethics could to some extent be compartmentalized from the business issues—a much easier feat when, as in much of the last few decades, virtually all care was reimbursed from some source or other. In addition, many HCOs were not categorized or treated as businesses, although of course they were presumed to be governed by the same expectation for good management as any other organization.

New Directions in Strategic Management and Business Ethics

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Elms ◽  
Stephen Brammer ◽  
Jared D. Harris ◽  
Robert A. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Behavioral Strategy ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Strategy As Practice ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT:This essay attempts to provide a useful research agenda for researchers in both strategic management and business ethics. We motivate this agenda by suggesting that the two fields started with similar interests, diverged, and are beginning to converge again. We then identify several streams that hold particular promise for developing our understanding of the relationship between strategy and ethics: stakeholder theory, managerial discretion, behavioral strategy, strategy as practice, and environmental sustainability.

Stakeholder Theory and A Principle of Fairness

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Business And Society ◽  
Stakeholder Identification ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Future

Abstract: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.

Contractarian Business Ethics: Credentials and Design Criteria

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1337-1355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Wempe
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Choice Situation ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Social ◽  
Stakeholder Model ◽  
Practical Guidance

Contractarian business ethics (CBE) is in great vogue in the present study of corporate morality. Its stated ambition is to provide better practical guidance than the more general ethical theories of business ethics, such as Kantianism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics or the stakeholder model. But how good is this new trend in business ethics theorizing? This article aims to assess CBE's credentials as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model in two earlier domains: political authority and social justice. Building on this comparison, it then develops four criteria for any future CBE. To apply the social contract model properly to the domain of corporate morality, it should be: (1) self-disciplined, i.e. not aspire to results beyond what the contract model can realistically establish; (2) argumentative, i.e. provide principles that are demonstrative results of the contractarian method; (3) task-directed, i.e. it should be clear what the social contract thought-experiment is intended to model; and (4) domain-specific, i.e. the contractarian choice situation should be tailored to the defining problems of corporate morality.

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