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  3. Business, Value Creation, and Society

Interactions between business, society and ethical values are proving critically important at the start of the 21st century. Corporate behavior is now firmly on the public agenda, and with new insights constantly developing within academic and business practitioner communities, this new series responds to a need for critical and reflective analysis, drawing on the latest academic research to answer pressing practical questions about business and its ethical management. Theoretical and empirical approaches are explored, shedding light on the complex business relationships which create and sustain value in today's global corporate environment.

  • General Editors: R. Edward Freeman, University of Virginia, Jeremy Moon, Copenhagen Business School, Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School

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17 results in Business, Value Creation, and Society

Stitching Governance for Labour Rights
  • Towards Transnational Industrial Democracy?
  • Juliane Reinecke, Jimmy Donaghey
  • Published online:
    09 March 2023
    Print publication:
    16 March 2023
  • Transnational labour governance is in urgent need of a new paradigm of democratic participation, with those who are most affected - typically workers - placed at the centre. To achieve this, principles of industrial democracy and transnational governance must come together to inform institutions within global supply chains. This book traces the development of 'transnational industrial democracy', using responses to the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster as the empirical context. A particular focus is placed on the Bangladesh Accord and the JETI Workplace Social Dialogue programme. Drawing on longitudinal field research from 2013–2020, the authors argue that the reality of modern-day supply chain capitalism has neither optimal institutional frameworks nor effective structures of industrial relations. Informed by principles of industrial democracy, the book aims at enhancing emerging forms of private transnational governance as second-best institutions.

Climate Activism
  • How Communities Take Renewable Energy Actions Across Business and Society
  • Annika Skoglund, Steffen Böhm
  • Published online:
    09 November 2022
    Print publication:
    20 October 2022
  • What is activism? The answer is, typically, that it is a form of opposition, often expressed on the streets. Skoglund and Böhm argue differently. They identify forms of 'insider activism' within corporations, state agencies and villages, showing how people seek to transform society by working within the system, rather than outright opposing it. Using extensive empirical data, Skoglund and Böhm analyze the transformation of climate activism in a rapidly changing political landscape, arguing that it is time to think beyond the tensions between activism and enterprise. They trace the everyday renewable energy actions of a growing 'epistemic community' of climate activists who are dispersed across organizational boundaries and domains. This book is testament to a new way of understanding activism as an organizational force that brings about the transition towards sustainability across business and society and is of interest to social science scholars of business, renewable energy and sustainable development.

Megacorporation
  • The Infinite Times of Alphabet
  • Glen Whelan
  • Published online:
    06 April 2021
    Print publication:
    08 April 2021
  • When the scale and scope of influence that a corporation wields is so great that it eclipses that of nearly all other corporations combined, it attains megacorporate status. Whelan proposes that, amongst the current big tech cohort, it is only Alphabet, the parent company of Google, that can be categorized as such. In advancing a novel philosophical perspective, and aspiring to an amoral ideal of analysis, Whelan reveals Alphabet's activities to be informed by the ideology of infinite times, consequently transforming how we experience the past, present and the future at personal and social levels. By shining a light on such corporate existential impacts, Megacorporation: The Infinite Times of Alphabet opens up a new field of research that makes the philosophical analysis of business and society an everyday concern. This novel study on corporate social influence will appeal to readers interested in big tech, business and society, political economy and organization studies.

Business Ethics for a Material World
  • An Ecological Approach to Object Stewardship
  • Ryan Burg
  • Published online:
    28 December 2017
    Print publication:
    01 March 2018
  • Increasingly, conscientious consumers and green marketers are recognizing that material things, not firms, must be made responsible. Even so, many scholars in ethics, sustainability, and governance focus on people and organizations, ignoring the flows of things. In this book, Ryan Burg argues that material things are fundamental features of moral life, serving as both valuable instruments and guides for responsibility. Unless care is taken for these non-living entities, living things cannot be protected. Viewing the global economy as a network of material transfers, Burg argues that to facilitate object care, professionals must act as stewards. By tracing the origins and disposal of workplace objects through this material network, businesses and employees can discover the outcomes for which they are responsible, and managers can align ethics, sustainability and governance with a truly global formulation of responsibility.

Visible Hands
  • Government Regulation and International Business Responsibility
  • Jette Steen Knudsen, Jeremy Moon
  • Published online:
    20 October 2017
    Print publication:
    02 November 2017
  • A growing number of states are regulating the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of domestic multinational corporations relating to overseas subsidiaries and suppliers. In this book, Jette Steen Knudsen and Jeremy Moon offer a new framework for analysing government-CSR relations: direct and indirect policies for CSR. Arguing that existing research on CSR regulation fails to address the growing role of the state in shaping the international practices of multinational corporations, the authors provide insight into the CSR issues that are addressed by government policies. Drawing on case studies, they analyse three key examples of CSR: non-financial reporting, ethical trade and tax transparency in extractive industries. In doing so, they propose a new research agenda of government and CSR that is relevant to scholars and graduate students in CSR, sustainability, political economy and economic sociology, as well as policymakers and consultants in international development and trade.

Managing Corporate Impacts
  • Co-Creating Value
  • Jennifer J. Griffin
  • Published online:
    05 January 2016
    Print publication:
    25 January 2016
  • Managing Corporate Impacts draws on the insights and experiences of managers from around the world to examine how companies can manage corporate impacts to co-create enduring value for business and society. Corporate impacts - the points at which businesses create or destroy value with others - extend well beyond financial impacts to include the workplace, procurement and delivery of goods and services, and shaping perceptions held about corporate behavior. This book uses simple frameworks to demonstrate why and how today's corporations co-create enduring value with multiple stakeholders simultaneously. By introducing multiplier effects and spillover effects, the frameworks move the attention of management beyond direct impacts to examine indirect impacts that create or destroy value connected to the core of the business. By purposely connecting with stakeholders through information-sharing, and effectively managing myriad impacts along supply and distribution chains, companies are poised to provide solutions and co-create value.

Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis
  • Why Incompetence Is Worse than Greed
  • Boudewijn de Bruin
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    12 February 2015
  • In this topical book, Boudewijn de Bruin examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. He argues that the most important moral problem in finance is not the 'greed is good' culture, but rather the epistemic shortcomings of bankers, clients, rating agencies and regulators. Drawing on insights from economics, psychology and philosophy, de Bruin develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue and applies it to racist and sexist lending practices, subprime mortgages, CEO hubris, the Madoff scandal, professionalism in accountancy and regulatory outsourcing of epistemic responsibility. With its multidisciplinary reach, Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis will appeal to scholars working in philosophy, business ethics, economics, psychology and the sociology of finance. The many concrete examples and case studies mean that this book will also prove useful to policy-makers and regulators.

Virtue in Business
  • Conversations with Aristotle
  • Edwin M. Hartman
  • Published online:
    05 July 2013
    Print publication:
    04 July 2013
  • The virtue approach to business ethics is a topic of increasing importance within the business world. Focusing on Aristotle's theory that the virtues of character, rather than actions, are central to ethics, Edwin M. Hartman introduces readers of this book to the value of applying Aristotle's virtue approach to business. Using numerous real-world examples, he argues that business leaders have good reason to take character seriously when explaining and evaluating individuals in organisations. He demonstrates how the virtue approach can deepen our understanding of business ethics, and how it can contribute to contemporary discussions of character, rationality, corporate culture, ethics education and global ethics. Written by one of the foremost Aristotelian scholars working in the field today, this authoritative introduction to the role of virtue ethics in business is a valuable primer for graduate students and academic researchers in business ethics, applied ethics and philosophy.

Capitalism, Corporations and the Social Contract
  • A Critique of Stakeholder Theory
  • Samuel F. Mansell
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    14 March 2013
  • In whose interests should a corporation be run? Over the last thirty years the field of 'stakeholder theory' has proposed a distinctive answer: a corporation should be run in the interests of all its primary stakeholders - including employees, customers, suppliers and financiers - without contradicting the ethical principles on which capitalism stands. This book offers a critique of this central claim. It argues that by applying the political concept of a 'social contract' to the corporation, stakeholder theory in fact undermines the principles on which a market economy is based. The argument builds upon an extensive review of the stakeholder literature and an analysis of its philosophical foundations, particularly concerning the social contract tradition of John Rawls and his predecessors. The book concludes by offering a qualified version of Milton Friedman's shareholder theory as a more justifiable account of the purpose of a corporation.

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship
  • Integrity Within
  • Christine A. Hemingway
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    23 May 2013
  • Business ethics teaching appears to have had little impact, particularly in the light of continued malpractice and misdemeanour in the form of financial scandals, environmental disasters and adverse consequences for communities. This timely book directly addresses a central question: is it that the existence of an ethical or an unethical climate influences behaviour, or, does the presence or absence of a moral character and personal values have the greatest influence on behaviour at work? Hemingway proposes four modes of individual moral commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability: the Active Corporate Social Entrepreneur, the Concealed Corporate Social Entrepreneur, the Conformist and the Disassociated. Hemingway posits that the Conformists represent the majority of people in organisations, adhering to the prevailing ethical climate, whatever that might be. However, it is the discovery of the corporate social entrepreneur which offers students and scholars a critical, alternative and optimistic perspective for the future of ethical business.

Stakeholders Matter
  • A New Paradigm for Strategy in Society
  • Sybille Sachs, Edwin Rühli
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    15 September 2011
  • The dominant shareholder-value model has led to mismanagement, market failure and a boost to regulation, as spectacularly demonstrated by the events surrounding the recent financial crisis. Stakeholders Matter challenges the basic assumptions of this model, in particular traditional economic views on the theory of the firm and dominant theories of strategic management, and develops a new understanding of value creation away from pure self-interest toward mutuality. This new 'stakeholder paradigm' is based on a network view, whereby mutuality enhances benefits and reduces risks for the firm and its stakeholders. The understanding of mutual value creation is operationalized according to the license to operate, to innovate and to compete. The book develops a vision for a strategy in society in which, rather than the invisible hand of the market, it the visible hands of the firm and the stakeholders that lead to an overall increase in the welfare of society.

Business and Public Policy
  • Responses to Environmental and Social Protection Processes
  • Jorge E. Rivera
  • Published online:
    03 May 2011
    Print publication:
    05 August 2010
  • It is increasingly common for businesses to face public policies and government regulation that demand some form of environmental or social protection. These protective public policies have grown in number, complexity, and stringency over the last few decades, not only in industrialized countries but also in the developing world. In this 2010 book, Jorge Rivera presents a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between protective public policies and business compliance. This framework explains different levels of business compliance in terms of three different factors: the link between the stages of protective public policies and different levels of business resistance, the effect of country context, and the effect of firm-level characteristics. The second part of the book supports and elaborates on this framework by presenting empirical studies that examine two voluntary environmental programs: the US ski industry's Sustainable Slopes Program and the Certification for Sustainable Tourism in Costa Rica.

Business, Integrity, and Peace
  • Beyond Geopolitical and Disciplinary Boundaries
  • Timothy L. Fort
  • Published online:
    19 January 2010
    Print publication:
    13 September 2007
  • Ethical business behavior has an unexpected payoff: it reduces the likelihood of violence. This insight forms the basis of Business, Integrity, and Peace, first published in 2007. Academic and popular interest in the topics of corporate responsibility and 'peace through commerce' has surged. This book demonstrates that the adoption of generally accepted ethical business practices does not require wholesale changes in corporate governance. It does require, however, the development of more reflexive and self-regulating models of corporate decision-making, drawing upon three strands of existing corporate responsibility approaches: the legal, the managerial, and the aesthetic. Fort introduces the concept of Total Integrity Management, providing an integrative framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries to create ethical corporate cultures, which in turn offer the best opportunity for corporations to become instruments of peace. Business, Integrity, and Peace is an important and provocative work that will appeal to academic scholars, business leaders and policy-makers alike.

NGOs and Corporations
  • Conflict and Collaboration
  • Michael Yaziji, Jonathan Doh
  • Published online:
    13 January 2010
    Print publication:
    26 March 2009
  • We live in a period marked by the ascendency of corporations. At the same time, the number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – such as Amnesty International, CARE, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Save the Children, and the WWF – has rapidly increased in the last twenty years. As a result, these two very different types of organization are playing an increasingly important role in shaping our society, yet they often have very different agendas. This book focuses on the dynamic interactions, both conflictual and collaborative, that exist between corporations and NGOs. It includes rigorous models, frameworks, and case studies to document the various ways that NGOs target corporations through boycotts, proxy campaigns, and other advocacy initiatives. It also explains the emerging pattern of cross-sectoral alliances and partnerships between corporations and NGOs. This book can help managers, activists, scholars, and students to better understand the nature, scope, and evolution of these complex interactions.

Corporations and Citizenship
  • Andrew Crane, Dirk Matten, Jeremy Moon
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    28 August 2008
  • It is widely accepted that corporations have economic, legal, and even social roles. Yet the political role of corporations has yet to be fully appreciated. Corporations and Citizenship serves as a corrective by employing the concept of citizenship in order to make sense of the political dimensions of corporations. Citizenship offers a way of thinking about roles and responsibilities among members of polities and between these members and their governing institutions. Crane, Matten and Moon provide a rich and multi-faceted picture that explores three relations of citizenship – corporations as citizens, corporations as governors of citizenship, and corporations as arenas of citizenship for stakeholders – as well as three contemporary reconfigurations of citizenship – cultural (identity-based), ecological, and cosmopolitan citizenship. The book revolutionizes not only our understanding of corporations but also of citizenship as a principle of allocating power and responsibility in a political community.

Entrepreneurs and Democracy
  • A Political Theory of Corporate Governance
  • Pierre-Yves Gomez, Harry Korine
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    22 May 2008
  • What legitimizes power within a corporation? This question is of concern to the millions of citizens whose lives depend upon the fate of business corporations. The rules, institutions and practices of corporate governance define the limits of the power to direct, and determine under what conditions this power is acceptable. Effective corporate governance has long been defined in terms of economic performance. More recent studies have focused on philosophical, political and historical analyses. Entrepreneurs and Democracy unites these strands of inquiry - the legitimacy of power, the evolution of multiple forms of governance and the economics of performance - and proposes a framework for future study. It explores the opposing tensions of entrepreneurial force and social fragmentation that form the basis of legitimate corporate governance in modern societies. In doing so, it identifies a common logic that links both the democratization of corporate governance and the growth of economic performance.

Business Ethics as Practice
  • Ethics as the Everyday Business of Business
  • Mollie Painter-Morland
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    04 December 2008
  • In recent years, a succession of corporate scandals has rocked the international business community. As a result, many companies have invested considerable time, money and effort on the development of ethics management programs. However, in many cases, such programs are nothing more than insurance policies against corporate liability, designed merely to limit the fallout of scandals should they occur. In Business Ethics as Practice, Mollie Painter-Morland urges us to take business ethics seriously by reconsidering the role of ethics management within organizations. She redefines the typical seven-step ethics management program from within – challenging the reader to reconsider what is possible within each aspect of this process. In doing so, she draws on the insights of Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and numerous contemporary organizational theorists and sociologists to create the space for the emergence of a morally responsive corporate ethos.