One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, contra Cohen, and (3) that the (...) kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Postmodernism and pragmatism as a response to the Enlightenment The postmodern response in organization studies Postmodern and pragmatist organizational ethics Conclusion.

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments.” We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental and normative stakeholder theory, and we construct a version of capitalism, called “stakeholder capitalism,” that builds on these libertarian ideas. We argue throughout that strong notions of “freedom” and “voluntary action” are the (...) best possible underpinnings for stakeholder theory, and in doing so, seek to return “stakeholder theory” to its managerial and libertarian roots found in Freeman (1984). (shrink)

The last 15 years have seen a remarkable set of changes in the global business environment. Established companies and start-ups alike have been subjected to some fundamental shifts in the very way that we conceptualize business. Together with some generational challenges we have seen myriad calls for a new narrative about business. And, even more recently, the COVID pandemic has reinforced a number of these shifts and led to even more fundamental change. The purpose of this essay is to outline (...) these challenges to the dominant narrative about business and to suggest that it is no longer a useful way to think about value creation and trade (business). (shrink)

Abstract:Stakeholder theory has become one of the most important developments in the field of business ethics. While this concept has evolved and gained prominence as a method of integrating ethics into the basic purposes and strategic objectives of the firm, the authors argue that stakeholder theory has retained certain “masculinist” assumptions from the wider business literature that limit its usefulness. The resources of feminist thought, specifically the work of Carol Gilligan, provide a means of reinterpreting the stakeholder concept in a (...) way that overcomes many of the existing limitations. This reading provides a different understanding of the identity and meaning of the firm, specifically in terms of its relationship to stakeholder groups and what it means for a firm to succeed. The alternatives proposed also converge with recent trends in the wider management literature and provide practical guidance for firms which face a myriad of challenges in the increasingly complex and global marketplace. (shrink)

1 Here’s a way to think about poverty. People who live in poverty do so because they have few opportunities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In fact the gap between rich and poor has increased in recent times due to the more wholesale adoption of capitalist practices around the world. The institutions of business and government conspire to give the poor a Hobson’s choice of minimal wage McJobs or unemployment. Neglect of both urban ghettoes and the rural poor (...) has been systematic, if not conscious. The very idea of capitalism reinforces the notion that some are meant to be poor and some are meant to be rich. Such a system must be overridden at times by government to help the poor cope with their lot. The only solution is a massive redistribution of income and a system of capitalism that is severely restrained. All of this is at best highly unlikely. Even if there were such a redistribution policy we could not count on government to execute it fairly. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

We define self-control as an individual's efforts to bias the outcome of present or anticipated motivational conflicts in order to increase the likelihood that subsequent behavior serves perceived long-term interests. We suggest suppression and resolve are not “mechanisms” that underlie self-control, but rather are classes of strategies that influence motivations in order to increase the likelihood of successful self-control outcomes.

There are few models of price competition in a homogeneous-good market which permit general asymmetries of information amongst the sellers. This work studies a price game with discontinuous payoffs in which both costs and market demand are ex ante uncertain. The sellers evaluate uncertain profits with maximin expected utilities exhibiting ambiguity aversion. The buyers in the market are permitted to split between sellers tieing at the minimum price in arbitrary ways which may be deterministic or random. The role of the (...) primitives in determining equilibrium prices in the market is analyzed in detail. (shrink)

Business is undergoing a conceptual revolution. Since the Global Financial Crisis there are many new ideas and proposals to make capitalism more responsible. The purpose of this paper is to identify key flaws in the “old story” of capitalism. Six principles are explained that taken together form the basis for a new story of business, one of responsible capitalism.

The purpose of this essay is to suggest that one of the dominant modes of thought in our society is a profound mistrust and misunderstanding of the role of business. A dominant myth in society is that business occupies the moral low ground, separate from ethics or a moral point of view. This position is characterized as the “business sucks” story, and the essay shows how the enactment of this story underlies business thinking among managers and business theorists. The essay (...) concludes with a suggestion to rethink and reinvent this story along more realistic and more empowering lines. Values based capitalism, or stakeholder capitalism, offers a better way to understand the complex role that business does and should play in modern society. (shrink)

Ed Freeman’s influential ideas on stakeholder theory, business ethics, humanities, and capitalism became foundational in the management field and turned around the mainstream thinking about business. Stakeholder theory developed by Freeman and others posits that business is not as much about profits, but rather about creating value for its stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, financiers, and suppliers. The relationship between a company and its stakeholders is the essence of business and should be of utmost attention to its managers. Managers should (...) avoid resorting to trade-offs by prioritizing one stakeholder group (e.g., shareholders) over the others and strive to run their companies in the interests of all stakeholders. The idea of pursuing the interests of all stakeholders became revolutionary in management and went far beyond the management field, expanding to Law, Health Care, Education, Public Policy and Administration, and Environmental Policy. This book is a collection of Ed Freeman’s most influential and important works on stakeholder theory as well as business ethics, humanities, and capitalism. (shrink)

In this article, we will outline the principles of stakeholder capitalism and describe how this view rejects problematic assumptions in the current narratives of capitalism. Traditional narratives of capitalism rely upon the assumptions of competition, limited resources, and a winner-take-all mentality as fundamental to business and economic activity. These approaches leave little room for ethical analysis, have a simplistic view of human beings, and focus on value-capture rather than value-creation. We argue these assumptions about capitalism are inadequate and leave four (...) problems in their wake. We wish to reframe the narrative of capitalism around the reinforcing concepts of stakeholders coupled with value creation and trade. If we think about how a society can sustain a system of voluntary value creation and trade, then capitalism can once more become a useful concept. (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)

Pragmatists believe that philosophical inquiry must engage closely with practice to be useful and that practice serves as a source of social norms. As a growing alternative to the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, pragmatism is well suited for research in business ethics, but its role remains underappreciated. This article focuses on Richard Rorty, a key figure in the pragmatist tradition. We read Rorty as a source of insight about the ethical and political nature of business practice in contemporary global (...) markets, focusing specifically on his views about moral sentiments, agency, and democratic deliberation. Importantly for business ethicists, Rorty’s approach sets in stark relief our moral responsibility as useful, practical thinkers in addressing the societal challenges of our time. We use “modern slavery” as an empirical context to highlight the relevance of Rorty’s approach to business ethics. (shrink)

God vs. the Gavel challenges the pervasive assumption that all religious conduct deserves constitutional protection. While religious conduct provides many benefits to society, it is not always benign. The thesis of the book is that anyone who harms another person should be governed by the laws that govern everyone else - and truth be told, religion is capable of great harm. This may not sound like a radical proposition, but it has been under assault since the 1960s. The majority of (...) academics and many religious organizations would construct a fortress around religious conduct that would make it extremely difficult to prosecute child abuse by clergy, medical neglect of children by faith-healers, and other socially unacceptable behaviors. This book intends to change the course of the public debate over religion by bringing to the public's attention the tactics of religious entities to avoid the law and therefore harm others. (shrink)

Ideas of wilderness in North America are evolving toward some new configuration. Current wilderness ideology, among other weaknesses, has been charged with encouraging a radical separation between people and nature and with being inadequate to serve the protection of biodiversity. Sustainable development and “wise use” privatization of wildlands have been offered as alternatives to the Western wilderness concept. I review this wilderness debate and argue that critical distinctions between wildness and wilderness and self and other must be settled before alternatives (...) can be considered. I look closely at arguments for sustainable development and argue that the limits on the human use of nature are discounted and technological management of wildlands is emphasized. I also argue that the “wise use” response to wilderness is a radically utilitarian option that does not contribute to evolving ideas of wilderness or sustainability and that replacing the sustainable development idea with sustainable landscape protection might better serve both wildness and human projects. Finally, I offer the ways of life of post-migratory ecosystem-based cultures as models of appropriate human behavior within a management framework of habitat protection for viable populations of all native species and conclude that our purpose in protecting wildness is not to preserve nature or to improve it, but rather to learn a sense of limits from it and to model culture after it. (shrink)

In the contemporary flurry of hostile corporate takeover activity, the ethics of the practice of greenmail have been called into question. The authors provide an account of greenmail in parallel with Daniel Ellsberg's conception of blackmail, as consisting of two conditions: a threat condition and a compliance condition.The analysis then proceeds to consider two questions: Is all greenmail morally wrong? Are all hostile takeovers morally wrong? The authors conclude that there is no basis for answering either question in the affirmative. (...) While there is no cause for moral concern per se, the practices of both greenmail and hostile takeovers yield deeper and more interesting questions for the theory of corporate governance. (shrink)

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney and more recently by Manfred Kets de Vries; we interpret their insights from a stakeholder theory perspective. Business ethics research seems to have overlooked how “neurotic management styles” could be the antecedents of unethical (...) behavior within organizations. After showing the connection between five managerial neuroses and the corresponding potential ethical failures within organizations that have been already identified within business ethics research, we suggest three organizational strategies to counteract these failures. First, we argue that managers should pay greater attention at the complexity of human motivation, avoiding the simplistic view of compliance‐based approaches. Second, we discuss the importance of developing a conversation around values within organizations, enabling healthy individual growth and limiting the emergence of neurotic processes. Finally, we discuss the role of the business ethicist in facilitating such a process, suggesting a parallel between the role of the business ethicist and that of the psychoanalytic therapist. (shrink)

This paper aims to integrate insights from psychoanalytic theory into business ethics research on the sources of ethical failures within organizations. We particularly draw from the analysis of sources and outcomes of neurotic processes that are part of human development, as described by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney and more recently by Manfred Kets de Vries; we interpret their insights from a stakeholder theory perspective. Business ethics research seems to have overlooked how “neurotic management styles” could be the antecedents of unethical (...) behavior within organizations. After showing the connection between five managerial neuroses and the corresponding potential ethical failures within organizations that have been already identified within business ethics research, we suggest three organizational strategies to counteract these failures. First, we argue that managers should pay greater attention at the complexity of human motivation, avoiding the simplistic view of compliance‐based approaches. Second, we discuss the importance of developing a conversation around values within organizations, enabling healthy individual growth and limiting the emergence of neurotic processes. Finally, we discuss the role of the business ethicist in facilitating such a process, suggesting a parallel between the role of the business ethicist and that of the psychoanalytic therapist. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe a way of teaching business ethics using the creative arts, especially literature and theater. By drawing on these disciplines for both method and texts, we can more easily make the connection to business as a fully human activity, concerned with how meaning is created. Students are encouraged to understand story-telling and narrative and how these tools lend insight into the daily life of businesspeople. The paper describes two main courses, Business Ethics Through (...) Literature and Leadership, Ethics and Theater, and the rationale for each. We begin by suggesting three main leverage points that the courses engender. We then rely on the words of students who have taken the courses for insights into what they learned. We then critically assess some of the principles that have informed course design over time. We conclude by suggesting that paying attention to the creative arts gives rise to a rather different approach to business ethics, one grounded in the pragmatist tradition in philosophy. (shrink)

This latest volume in the acclaimed Ruffin Series in Business Ethics brings together the contributions to the annual Ruffin Lecture series, in which some of the leading scholars in business ethics addressed the question: Can business, and business education, be considered one of the humanities, or is it in a class by itself? At a time when business is coming under attack for its apparent transgressions, this book iluminates the special values that inhere in the business world. Arguing all sides (...) of the issue, the distinguished contributors include Richard DeGeorge, Ronald Green, Thomas Dunfee, Robert Solomon, Edwin Hartman, Peter French, Patricia Werhane, Clarence Walton, W. Michael Hoffman, David Fedo, Kenneth Andrews, Joanne Ciulla, Manuel Velasquez, and George Brenkert. The editors contribute an informative Introduction and an Epilogue to set the debate in its proper context. (shrink)

We bring the distinct and complementary existentialist perspectives of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to bear on the phenomenon of moral disengagement in managerial decision-making. Existentialist thinking is a rich source of insight on this phenomenon, because—as we demonstrate—the concept of moral disengagement overlaps significantly with the notion of ‘a consciousness in bad faith’ in Sartre’s writing, and the notion of ‘not willing oneself free’ in De Beauvoir’s writing. These concepts play a critical role in existentialist ethics, and thus (...) existentialists carefully deliberated the phenomenon that these concepts aim to illuminate. Rather than being motivated by self-interest as implied by the bulk of extant empirical work on moral disengagement, existentialist perspectives suggest that moral disengagement can instead be motivated by an overwhelming sense of responsibility towards diverse others. From an existentialist perspective, the temptation to morally disengage will not only be felt by individuals that have a strong, trait-like propensity for moral disengagement, but by managers in general. This temptation is likely to be felt in the specific context of right vs. right dilemmas, which have up to now rarely been studied by moral disengagement scholars. Even though existentialist thought paints the problem of moral disengagement as more widespread and entrenched in the human condition, it also suggests ways of preventing moral disengagement. In arguing for these preventative approaches, we make careful distinctions between Sartre and De Beauvoir, thereby becoming the first to argue that De Beauvoir offers a unique contribution to our understanding of ethical decision-making in management. (shrink)

Business ethics, as a discipline, appears to be at a crossroads. Down one avenue lies more of the same: mostly philosophers takingwhat they know of ethics and ethical theory and applying it to business. There is a long tradition of scholars working in the area known as “business and society” or “social issues in management.” Most of these scholars are trained as social scientists and teach in business schools. Their raison d’etre has been admirable: trying to get executives and students (...) of business to understand the social impacts of business and to see business in broad, societal terms. (shrink)

This book is a unique collection of essays by the leading scholars in business ethics. The purpose of the volume is to examine the emergence of business ethics as an important element of managerial practice and as an integral area of scholarship. The four lead essays--by Norman Bowie, Kenneth Goodpaster, Thomas Donaldson, and Ezra Bowen--are examples of some of the best thinking about the role of ethics in business. These essays examine such issues as the nature of scholarship and knowledge (...) in business ethics, how ethics is a central factor in managerial leadership, the complexities of ethics in multinational and multicultural settings, and the problems of ethical literacy and moral debate in a free society. Each lead essay develops several themes which are then explored by other prominent thinkers, including Robert Solomon, Richard DeGeorge, and Joanne Cuilla. (shrink)

The recent financial crisis has prompted questioning of our basic ideas about capitalism and the role of business in society. As scholars are calling for “responsible leadership” to become more of the norm, organizations are being pushed to enact new values, such as “responsibility” and “sustainability,” and pay more attention to the effects of their actions on their stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to open up a line of research in business ethics on the concept of “ authenticity (...) ” as it can be applied in modern organizational life and more specifically to think through some of the foundational questions about the logic of values. We shall argue that the idea of simply “acting on one’s values” or “being true to oneself” is at best a starting point for thinking about authenticity. We develop the idea of the poetic self as a project of seeking to live authentically. We see being authentic as an ongoing process of conversation that not only starts with perceived values but also involves one’s history, relationships with others, and aspirations. Authenticity entails acting on these values for individuals and organizations and thus also becomes a necessary starting point for ethics. After all, if there is no motivation to justify one’s actions either to oneself or to others, then as Sartre has suggested, morality simply does not come into play. We argue that the idea of responsible leadership can be enriched with this more nuanced idea of the self and authenticity. (shrink)

1. Here’s a way to think about poverty. People who live in poverty do so because they have few opportunities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In fact the gap between rich and poor has increased in recent times due to the more wholesale adoption of capitalist practices around the world. The institutions of business and government conspire to give the poor a Hobson’s choice of minimal wage McJobs or unemployment. Neglect of both urban ghettoes and the rural poor (...) has been systematic, if not conscious. The very idea of capitalism reinforces the notion that some are meant to be poor and some are meant to be rich. Such a system must be overridden at times by government to help the poor cope with their lot. The only solution is a massive redistribution of income and a system of capitalism that is severely restrained. All of this is at best highly unlikely. Even if there were such a redistribution policy we could not count on government to execute it fairly. (shrink)

We theorize that, in the current development of business ethics, there is a fruitful evolution that dissolves the dichotomy between the normative and behavioral research approaches developed, respectively, by philosophers and social scientists; this approach avoids many of the limitations originated by such distinction by reconnecting their two separate narratives. We call this emerging research model Humanistic Business Ethics (HBE) as it emphasizes the centrality of the human dimension of business and the importance of adopting a richer concept of humanity (...) in business ethics research. We argue that this specific research model in business ethics emerges when scholars combine a pragmatist philosophical approach with some key ideas coming from stakeholder theory, which we summarize and connect. By leveraging collaboration across ethics, economics, psychology, and entrepreneurship, HBE can help business and society scholars undertake fruitful inquiries into the way business works (and should work) at its best. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Brief History of Corporate Responsibility The Nature of Corporate Obligations and the Scope of Corporate Responsibility Some Promising Approaches to the Study of Corporate Responsibility Corporate Responsibility and the Limits of Minimalism.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the current conversation about the relationship between capitalism and the poor assumes a story about business that is shopworn and outmoded. There are assumptions about business, human behavior, and language that are no longer useful in the twenty first century. Business needs to be understood as how we cooperate together to create value and trade. It is fundamentally about creating value for stakeholders. Human beings are not solely self-interested, but driven by (...) meaning, purpose, and the ability to cooperate. And, language is best understood as a tool, rather than a source of representation. Business and capitalism with these new assumptions can be realized by large and small businesses as not just about money and profits but as the creation of meaning within a prophetic framework. (shrink)

This latest book in the Ruffin Series in Business Ethics is the first work to analyze the significance of gender in the ethical management of business organizations. Scholars from the fields of business ethics and women's studies come together in this book to offer fresh new perspectives on business ethics. The contributors examine the value of feminist theory and scholarship for business ethics, and from this examination four overarching themes emerge. The first theme is that corporations are socially constructed organizations (...) that assume, in their practice and ideology, that men are the standard of measurement. Secondly, this work highlights the power of feminist critiques to bring gender into focus as a central organizing principle of economic life. The third theme explores the existence of "frames," unexamined habits of mind that are taken for granted and prevent alternative ways of thinking, especially about the role of women at the periphery of organizations. The fourth theme is that business ethics itself has been feminized in its subordinate position relative to the dominant fields in the hierarchy of business management, such as finance and strategy. Women's Studies and Business Ethics brings together some of the most important thinkers on organizations and gender issues today. The confluence of experts in these hitherto disparate fields, and the rich and lively dialogue it produces, results in a book that will be fascinating reading for scholars, students, and professionals involved in all aspects of business and management. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments.” We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental and normative stakeholder theory, and we construct a version of capitalism, called “stakeholder capitalism,” that builds on these libertarian ideas. We argue throughout that strong notions of “freedom” and “voluntary action” are the (...) best possible underpinnings for stakeholder theory, and in doing so, seek to return “stakeholder theory” to its managerial and libertarian roots found in Freeman. (shrink)

Employee monitoring has raised concerns from all areas of society – business organizations, employee interest groups, privacy advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, professional ethicists, and every combination possible. Each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical. However, no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis. These arguments have been used equally from all sides of the debate. The purpose of this paper is to (...) examine the seven key arguments that have been made with respect to employee monitoring. None of these arguments is conclusive and each calls for managerial and moral consideration. We conclude that a more comprehensive inquiry with ethical concern at the center is necessary to make further progress on understanding the complexity of employee monitoring. The final section of this paper sketches out how such an inquiry would proceed. (shrink)

Lack of specificity around stakeholder identity remains a serious obstacle to the further development of stakeholder theory andits adoption in actual practice by business managers. Nowhere is this shortcoming more evident than in stakeholder theory’s treatment of the constituency known as “community.”In this paper we attempt to set forth what we call “the Problem of Community” as indicative of the definitional problems of stakeholdertheory. We then begin the process of gaining greater specificity around our notions of community and the role (...) of community in stakeholder theory and management. In doing so, we identify the emergence of two fairly new forms of community that we believe are particularly relevant to the stakeholder theorist and practicing manager. These two new variants of community—the virtual advocacy group and the community of practice—extend the notion of community in new directions, which have strikingly different implications for stakeholder theory and practice. (shrink)

For more than thirty years the writings and influence of one man in particular have dominated and directed the field of modern business ethics. We are indebted to two of his fellow‐Americans for this portrait of Richard T. De George. R. Edward Freeman is the Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration and Director of the Olsson Center for Ethics at The Darden School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22906‐6550; and Martin Calkins, SJ, is a Research Assistant in the (...) Olsson Center and a doctoral student in business ethics at the Darden School. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar separation exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will explore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A different (...) stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of lsquotechnologyrsquo ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we propose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions. (shrink)

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

While there is a large and ever-expanding body of work on the fields of business ethics and corporate social responsibility, there is a noted absence of a single source on the methodology and research approaches to these fields. In this book, the first of its kind, leading scholars in the fields gather to analyse a range of philosophical and empirical approaches to research in business ethics and CSR. It covers such sections as historical approaches, normative and behavioural methodologies, quantitative, qualitative (...) and experimental perspectives, grounded theory and case methodologies, and finally a section on the role of the researcher in research projects. This book is a valuable and essential read for all researchers in business ethics and CSR, not only for those starting out in the fields, but also for seasoned scholars and academics. (shrink)

The development of an ethical perspective of HRM that is both employee centered and explicitly normative and, as such, distinct from dominant and criticalperspectives of HRM has progressed in recent years. Reliance on the traditional “threesome” of rights/justice theories, deontology and consequentialism, however, has limited debate to micro-level issues and the search for a “solution.” By understanding the employment relationship as a stakeholder relationship, we open the ethical analysis of HRM to the pluralism and pragmatism that stakeholder theory has to (...) offer. In doing this, we can address both the broader need for HRM to offer a more comprehensive account of our humanity and the specific requisite for HRM to treat employees as moral persons with “names and faces.”. (shrink)

Distinguishing “business” concerns from “ethical” values is not only an unfruitful and meaningless task, it is also an impossible endeavor. Nevertheless, fruitless attempts to separate facts from values produce detrimental second-order effects, both for theory and practice, and should therefore be abandoned. We highlight examples of exemplary research that integrate economic and moral considerations, and point the way to a business ethics discipline that breaks new ground by putting ideas and narratives about businesstogetherwith ideas and narratives about ethics.

In this article, we first provide evidence that Scandinavian contributions to stakeholder theory over the past 50 years play a much larger role in its development than is presently acknowledged. These contributions include the first publication and description of the term “stakeholder”, the first stakeholder map, and the development of three fundamental tenets of stakeholder theory: jointness of interests, cooperative strategic posture, and rejection of a narrowly economic view of the firm. We then explore the current practices of Scandinavian companies (...) through which we identify the evidence of relationships to these historical contributions. Thus, we propose that Scandinavia offers a particularly promising context from which to draw inspiration regarding effective company-stakeholder cooperation and where ample of examples of what is more recently referred to as “creating shared value” can be found. We conclude by endorsing the expression “Scandinavian cooperative advantage” in an effort to draw attention to the Scandinavian context and encourage the field of strategic management to shift its focus from achieving a competitive advantage toward achieving a cooperative advantage. (shrink)