Kantian Capitalism and the Stakeholder Model: the necessity of a corporate ethics of justice

Pedro Francés Gómez

Home > No 0 (2012): January-June: 43-74 > Francés Gómez

Kantian Capitalism and the Stakeholder Model: the necessity of a corporate ethics of justice

Pedro Francés Gómez

Abstract

Stakeholder theory is the main-stream way of conceiving organizations, especially for profit corporations. Corporations are described as a web of stakeholders before whom managers have a multi-fiduciary responsibility. Edward Freeman, the father of stakeholder theory, holds that a normative theory of stakeholder management would set those fiduciary responsibilities as truly moral duties, due to the fact that stakeholders possess intrinsic, as opposed to merely instrumental, value. This article criticizes the basis of Freeman’s defense of normative stakeholder theory. The crucial critical argument is that Freeman employs the very same normative foundation that the classic theory of the firm uses; while deriving a view of the corporation that is less precise than the classic one. As an alternative, it is proposed that the organization should be conceived as a realm for justice: a social context of interaction where all parties would find it rational to agree to criteria for distributing the benefits so that cooperation –as required to bring about those benefits– is secured. This approach founds obligations (among stakeholders) without the need to resort to hypothesis as individual dignity or rights. However, the demands of justice might still be operationalized as rights of several kinds.

Keywords

stakeholder theory, theory of justice, justice and corporations, business ethics

Full Text:

PDF (Español)

Statistics

Abstract : 1984 vistas. PDF (Español) : 373 vistas.

References

Axelrod, R. (1984), The Evolution of Cooperation, New York, Basic Books.

Bicchieri, C., Duffy, J. and Tolle, G. (July 2004), "Trust among Strangers", Philosophy of Science, 71, pp. 286-319.

Bicchieri, C., Jeffrey, R. and Skyrms, B. (eds.) (1997), The Dynamics of Norms, Cambridge University Press.

Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society. The Nature and Dynamics of Social Norms, Cambridge University Press.

Binmore, K. (2005), Natural Justice, Oxford University Press.

Bowie, N. E. (1998), "A Kantian Theory of Capitalism",

Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 8 (1), pp. 37-60.

Bowie, N. E. (1999), Business Ethics. A Kantian Perspective, Oxford, Blackwell.

Coase, R. (1988), The Firm, the Market and the Law, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

Cowton, C. And Haase, M. (eds.) (2008), Trends in Business and Economic Ethics, Berlin, Springer.

Cowton, C. (2008), "On setting the agenda for business ethics research", Trends in Business and Economic Ethics, Berlin,

Springer, pp. 11-32.

Danielson, P. (ed.) (1998), Modelling Rationality, Morality and Evolution, Oxford University Press.

Danielson (1992), Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtuous Games. London, Routledge.

Donaldson, T. (1982), Corporations and Morality, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.), Prentice Hall.

Donaldson, T. & Dunfee, T.W. (1999), Ties that Bind. A social Contract Approach to Business Ethics, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard Business School Press.

Donaldson, T. and L. Preston (1995), "The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications", Academy of Management Review 20(1), pp. 65–91.

Evan, W. and Freeman, E. (1988), "A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation: Kantian Capitalism", Beauchamp, T. and Bowie, N. (eds.), Ethical Theory and Business (3ª edición, primera edición de 1983), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall pp. 97-106.

Fassin, Y. (2009), "The Stakeholder Model Refined", Journal of Business Ethics, 84: 113-135; DOI: 10.1007/s10551-008-9677-4.

Francés, P. (1999), "Derecho y las reglas del mercado", DOXA (Alicante), 22, pp. 413-431.

Francés, P. y Del Río, A. (2008), "Stakeholder’s Preference and Rational Compliance: A Comment on Sacconi’s. CSR as a Model for Extended Corporate Governance II: Compliance, Reputation and Reciprocity", Journal of Business Ethics, 82: 59-76. DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9562-6.

Frank, R. (1988), Passions within Reason. The Strategic Role of Emotions, New York, Wiley and Sons.

Freeman, E. (1984), Strategic Management. A Stakeholder Approach, Boston, Pitman.

Friedman, M. (1970), "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits", The New York Times Magazine, 13 de septiembre.

Fudenberg, J. (1991), “Explaining Co-operation and Commitment in Repeated Games”, J.J. Laffont (ed.), Advances in Economic Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Fudenberg, J. and J. Tirole (1991), Game Theory, Cambridge (Mass.), The MIT Press.

Gauthier, D. (1975), "Reason and Maximization", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 4, pp. 411-433.

Gauthier, D. (1982), "Three against Justice: The Foole, the Sensible Knave and the Lydian Shepherd", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 7 (1982), pp. 11 29. Reprinted in Gauthier (1990) pp. 129 149.

Gauthier, D. (1986), Morals by Agreement, Oxford, Clarendon.

Gauthier, D. (1988), “Hobbes’s Social Contract”, Nous 22, 71-82.

Gauthier, D. (1990), Moral Dealing. Contract, Ethics and Reason, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.

Gauthier, D. (1994), “Assure and Threaten”, Ethics, 82, pp. 690-721.

Hampton, J. (1986), Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Harsanyi, J.C. (1996), “Morality and Incentives”, Farina, F.,

Hahn, F. and Vanucci, S., Ethics, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, Oxford, Clarendon, pp. 22-35.

Hume, D. (1978) [1739], A Treatise of Human Nature, (ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge), Oxford, Clarendon.

Joyce, R. (2006), The Evolution of Morality, Cambridge (Mass.), MIT Press.

Jensen, M.C. (2002), "Value maximization, stakeholder theory and the corporate objective function", Andriöf, J, Waddock, S.,

Husted, B. & S.S. Rahman (eds.), Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking, Sheffield (UK), Greenleaf; pp. 65-84.

Kahane, H. (1995), Contract Ethics. Evolutionary Biology and the Moral Sentiments, Lanham (Maryland), Rowman & Littlefield.

Kant, I. (1988), Lecciones de ética, Barcelona, Crítica (ed. de R. Rodríguez-Aramayo y Concha Roldán Panadero).

Keeley, M. (1988), A Social-Contract Theory of Organization, Notre Dame (Indiana), University of Notre Dame Press.

Lenz, H.R. (2008), "Why act morally? Economic and philosophical reasons", Cowton, C. And Haase, M. (eds.) Trends in Business and Economic Ethics, Berlin, Springer, pp. 131-152.

Lozano, J. M. (1999), Ética y empresa, Madrid, Trotta.

Morris, C.W. (ed.) (1999), The Social Contract Theorists, Lanham (Maryland), Rowman & Littlefied.

Phillips, R. (2003), Stakeholer Theory and Organizational Ethics, San Francisco (CA) Berrett-Koeher.

Post, J.E., Preston, L. E. & Sachs, S. (2002), Redefining the Corporation. Stakeholder Management and Organizational Wealth, Stanford (California), Stanford University Press.

Sacconi, L. (2000), The Social Contract of the Firm. Economics, Ethics and Organization, Berlin, Springer.

Sacconi, L. (2006), "A Social Contract Accounto for CSR as Extended Model of Corporate Governance (I): Rational Bargaining and Justification", Journal of Business Ethics, 68: 259-281. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9014-8.

Sacconi, L. (2007), "A Social Contract Account for CSR as Extended Model of Corporate Governance (II): Compliance, Reputation and Reciprocity", Journal of Business Ethics, 75: 77-96. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9239-6.

Sacconi, L. and Grimalda, G. (2005), "Ideals, Conformism and Reciprocity: A Model of Individual Choice with Conformist Motivations, and and Application to the Non-for-Profit Case", L. Bruni and P. L. Porta (eds.), The Paradoxes of Happiness in Economics, Brookfield, Edward Elgar.

Sacconi, L. and Faillo, M. (2009), "Conformity, Reciprocity and the sense of justice. How social contract-based preferences and beliefs explain norm compliance: the experimental evidence", Constitutional Political Economy, on line 06 May 09, DOI 10.1007/s10602-009-9080-x

Scanlon, T.M. (1982), "Contractualism and Utilitarianism", Sen and Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 103-128.

Scanlon, T.M. (1998), What We Owe to Each Other, Cambridge (Mass.), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Skyrms, B. (1996), Evolution of the Social Contract, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Skyrms, B. (2004), The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of the Social Structure, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Ulrich, P. (2008), Integrative Economic Ethics. Foundations of a Civilized Market Economy, Cambridge University Press.

Weibull, J. (1995), Evolutionary Game Theory, Cambridge (Mass.) The MIT Press.

Refbacks

There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Username
Password
Remember me