David Bauman

Claiming that citizens have a “right to free speech” signals to those in free and democratic societies that speech is a freedom that should be protected. Claiming this right, however, does not explain the limits of that right, such as who can speak and what they can and cannot say within organizations. Unlike other articles that describe the legal limits of speech rights, I provide an account of how speech rights can be ethically justified inside and outside of organizations. I first make three assumptions about how strong common interests in speaking and owning things eventually became moral rights and then legal rights within free societies. I also explain how an organization’s property rights and right to make and dissolve contracts can justify managers in limiting free speech. Using principles from rights, fairness, and justice, I further describe when managers should and should not limit speech based on organizational roles and speech content. In some cases, employees could argue that speech limits are unfair if employees in similar circumstances are not allowed to speak on similar topics. I conclude by analyzing whistleblowing as employee speech that managers may try to limit using property rights or consequentialist arguments, but that society protects as a requirement of justice.

Leading a corporation through a crisis requires rational decision making guided by an ethical approach (Snyder et al., Journal of Business Ethics, 63, 2006, 371). Three such approaches are virtue ethics (Seeger and Ulmer, Journal of Business Ethics, 31, 2001, 369), an ethic of justice, and an ethic of care (Simóla, Journal of Business Ethics, 46, 2003, 351). In this article, I consider the effectiveness of these approaches for leading a corporation after a crisis. The standard I use is drawn from recent studies that examine how people tend to react to corporate unintentional harms. I conclude from these studies that an ethic of care approach is most effective for managing corporate crises when it comes to stakeholder concerns. I conclude the article with strategies for managing a crisis using an ethic of care.