Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T11:41:57.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Firms with Unique Competencies for Rescuing Victims of Human Catastrophes Have Special Obligations? Corporate Responsibility and the Aids Catastrophe in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Thomas W. Dunfee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Firms possessing a unique competency to rescue the victims of a human catastrophe have a minimum moral obligation to devote substantial resources toward best efforts to aid the victims. The minimum amount that firms should devote to rescue is the largest sum of their most recent year’s investment in social initiatives, their five-year trend, their industry’s average, or the national average. Financial exigency may justify a lower level of investment. Alternative social investments may be continued if they have an equally compelling rationale. These duties apply to the global pharmaceutical companies in the context of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

Type
Special Forum
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 185 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartkus, B. R., Morris, S. A., and Seifert, B. 2002. “Governance and Corporate Philanthropy: Restraining Robin Hood?” Business & Society 41(3): 319–44.Google Scholar
Beattie, A. 2005. “Presssure for Cheap Drugs Gives Companies a Headache,” Financial Times (USA edition): 18.Google Scholar
Caplan, A. 2004. “AIDS Crisis Draws Corporate Attention,” http://www.businessfightsaids.org/news_read.asp?sct=2&ID=9217.Google Scholar
Drumwright, M. E. 1996. “Company Advertising with a Social Dimension: The Role of Noneconomic Criteria,” Journal of Marketing 60 (October): 71–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, T., and Dunfee, T. W.. 1999. Ties That Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Dunfee, T. W. 1991. “Business Ethics and Extant Social Contracts,” Business Ethics Quarterly 1(1): 23–51.Google Scholar
Dunfee, T. W.. 1999. “Corporate Governance in a Market with Morality,” Law & Contemporary Problems 62(3): 129–58.Google Scholar
Dyer, G. 2002. “Merck Cuts Cost of AIDS Drug in Poor Countries,” Financial Times (USA edition): 6.Google Scholar
Dyer, G. 2003. “GSK Bows to Pressure and Halves Price of Top AIDS Drug,” Financial Times (USA Edition): 15.Google Scholar
Easterbrook, F. H., and Fischel, D. R. 1991. The Economic Structure of Corporate Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 1970. “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” New York Times Magazine (September 13): 32–33, 122, 124, 126.Google Scholar
Gellman, B. 2000. “A Turning Point that Left Millions Behind,” Washington Post (December 28): A01.Google Scholar
Goodin, R. E. 1985. Protecting the Vulnerable.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hess, D., Rogovsky, N., and Dunfee, T. W.. 2002. “The Next Wave of Corporate Community Involvement: Corporate Social Initiatives,” California Management Review 44(2): 110–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jack, A. 2005a. “Treatment for All? Tough Choices Await as the World Scales Up its Battle against AIDS,” Financial Times (August 9) (USA edition): 8.Google Scholar
Jack, A. 2005b. “WHO Says AIDS Battle Still Being Lost,” Financial Times (November 22) (USA edition): 3.Google Scholar
Logsdon, J. M., and Wood, D. J. 2002. “Business Citizenship: From Domestic to Global Level of Analysis,” Business Ethics Quarterly 12(2): 155–87.Google Scholar
Margolis, J. D., and Walsh, D. J. 2001. People and Profits? The Search for a Link Between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates.Google Scholar
Matten, D., and Crane, N. Forthcoming. “Corporate Citizenship: Towards an Extended Theoretical Conceptualization,” Academy of Management Review 24.Google Scholar
Minow, N. 1999. “Corporate Charity: An Oxymoron?” Business Lawyer 54: 997–1005.Google Scholar
Porter, M. E., and Kramer, M. R. 2002. “The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy,” Harvard Business Review (December): 57–68.Google Scholar
Putzel, J. 2004. “The Global Fight against AIDS: How Adequate Are the National Commissions?” Journal of International Development 16: 1129–40.Google Scholar
Quelch, J. and Rangan, . 2003. “Profit Globally, Give Globally,” Harvard Business Review 81(12): 16.Google Scholar
Reisel, W. D., and Sama, L. M. 2003. “The Distribution of Life-Saving Pharmaceuticals: Viewing the Conflict between Social Efficiency and Economic Efficiency Through a Social Contract Lens,” Business and Society Review 108(3): 365–87.Google Scholar
Saiia, D. H., Carroll, A. B., and Buchholtz, A. K. 2003. “Philanthropy as Strategy: When Corporate Charity ‘Begins at Home,’” Business & Society 42(2): 169–201.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Seifert, B., Morris, S. A., and Bartkus, B. R. 2004. “Having, Giving and Getting: Slack Resources, Corporate Philanthropy, and Firm Financial Performance,” Business & Society 43(2): 135–61.Google Scholar
Shadlen, K. C. 2004. “Challenges to Treatment: The Price-Infrastructure Trap and Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs,” Journal of International Development 16: 1169–80.Google Scholar
Smith, N. C. 1994. “The New Corporate Philanthropy,” Harvard Business Review 72 (May-June): 105–16.Google Scholar
UNAIDS 2004 Report on the Global Aids Epidemic, http://unaids.org. Executive Summary and Fact Sheet.Google Scholar
Webster’s, Third New International Dictionary. 1976. Chicago: G. and C. Merriam Co.Google Scholar
Wood, D. J., and Logsdon, J. M. 2001. “Theorising Business Citizenship,” in Perspectives on Corporate Citizenship, ed. Jorg, Andriof and Malcolm, Mcintosh. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 83–103 (chap. 5).Google Scholar
Varadarajan, P., and Menon, A. 1988. “Cause-Related Marketing: A Co-Alignment of Marketing Strategy and Corporate Philanthropy,” Journal of Marketing 52(3): 58–74.Google Scholar