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1Stakeholder theory: The state of the artIn Norman E. Bowie (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Business Ethics, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 19--37. 2002.
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ForewordIn Randy Richards (ed.), Conversations on ethics and business : a guide to thinking about workplace ethics, Ethics International Press. 2023.
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11Letters to stakeholders: An emerging phenomenon of multi‐stakeholder engagementBusiness Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility. forthcoming.We explore a new phenomenon of multi-stakeholder orientation and engagement in corporate communication: letters to stakeholders. By applying content, semantic, and quantitative analyses to standardized corporate communication among the 100 largest multinational companies worldwide, our study reveals that approximately one-third of the examined companies have begun to utilize what could be considered letters to stakeholders. We demonstrate that letters to stakeholders adopt a multi-stakeholder or…Read more
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8The Business of Consumption: Environmental Ethics and the Global EconomyRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1998.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
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28R. Edward Freeman’s Selected Works on Stakeholder Theory and Business Ethics (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2023.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 o…Read more
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6Business as a Humanity (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1994.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 …Read more
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8The Promise of Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and Business EthicsBusiness Ethics Quarterly 31 (4): 572-599. 2021.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 pr…Read more
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30Toward Humanistic Business EthicsBusiness and Society 63 (3): 542-571. 2024.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 busi…Read more
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10Corporate ResponsibilityIn R. G. Frey & Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.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.
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11Business EthicsIn R. G. Frey & Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: Two Traditional Topics in Business Ethics: Agency and Responsibility Traditional Business Ethics and the Separation Thesis Stakeholder Theory Emerging Lines of Research Some Contemporary Topics Conclusion.
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6Business Ethics: Pragmatism and PostmodernismIn Robert Frederick (ed.), A companion to business ethics, Blackwell. 1999.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.
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24Stakeholder CapitalismJournal of Business Ethics 74 (4): 303-314. 2007.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-crea…Read more
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6Creating Ties That BindJournal of Business Ethics 88 (S4): 685-692. 2009.The work of Donaldson and Dunfee offers an example of how normative and descriptive approaches to business ethics can be integrated. We suggest that to be truly integrative, however, the theory should explore the processes by which such integration happens. We, therefore, sketch some preliminary thoughts that extend Integrative Social Contracts Theory by beginning to consider the process by which microsocial contracts are connected to hypernorms
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35Dialogue: Toward Superior Stakeholder TheoryBusiness Ethics Quarterly 18 (2): 153-190. 2008.A quick look at what is happening in the corporate world makes it clear that the stakeholder idea is alive, well, and flourishing; and the question now is not “if ” but “how” stakeholder theory will meet the challenges of its success. Does stakeholder theory’s “arrival” mean continued dynamism, refinement, and relevance, or stasis? How will superior stakeholder theory continue to develop? In light of these and related questions, the authors of these essays conducted an ongoing dialogue on the cu…Read more
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14Business in a Post-COVID World: The Move to Stakeholder CapitalismJournal of Human Values 29 (2): 105-114. 2023.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 t…Read more
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6How to Assess Multiple-Value Accounting Narratives from a Value Pluralist Perspective? Some Metaethical CriteriaJournal of Business Ethics 1-17. forthcoming.Nowadays businesses are often expected to create not just financial, but multiple kinds of value—and they report on this using numbers and narratives. Multiple-value accounting narratives, such as those required by the Integrated Reporting framework, are often met with suspicion: accounting scholars have argued that inconsistencies between narratives and performances show that narratives are used for impression management rather than to accurately report the (ir)responsible behavior of companies…Read more
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18Toward a Theory of Marginalized Stakeholder-Centric EntrepreneurshipBusiness Ethics Quarterly 34 (1): 1-34. 2024.The neglect of marginalized stakeholders is a colossal problem in both stakeholder and entrepreneurship streams of literature. To address this problem, we offer a theory of marginalized stakeholder-centric entrepreneurship. We conceptualize how firms can utilize marginalized stakeholder input actualization through which firms should process a variety of ideas, resources, and interactions with marginalized stakeholders and then filter, internalize, and, finally, realize important elements that im…Read more
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7Existentialist Perspectives on the Problem and Prevention of Moral DisengagementJournal of Business Ethics 185 (3): 499-511. 2023.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 conce…Read more
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3Business Ethics Pioneers: Ed FreemanBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 40 (3): 329-335. 2021.
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8A puzzle about business ethicsBusiness Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 31 (1): 272-273. 2021.Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.
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6Research Handbook of Responsible Management (edited book)Edward Elgar Publishing. 2020.Outlining both historical foundations and the latest research trends, this Research Handbook offers a unique and cutting-edge overview of the numerous avenues to responsible management.Opening with a conceptual mapping of the field, thought leaders such as Henry Mintzberg and Archie Carroll present foundational and controversial views. Frameworks such as sustainability management, responsible leadership, humanistic and biomimetic management are introduced. Glocal approaches include responsible m…Read more
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7Practicing Human Dignity: Ethical Lessons from Commedia dell’Arte and TheaterJournal of Business Ethics 144 (2): 251-262. 2017.The paper considers two main cases of how the creative arts can inform a greater appreciation of human dignity. The first case explores a form of theater, Commedia dell’Arte that has deep roots in Italian culture. The second recounts a set of theater exercises done with very minimal direction or self-direction in executive education and MBA courses at the Darden School, University of Virginia, in the United States. In both cases we highlight how the creative arts can be important for promoting h…Read more
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11Unethical, neurotic, or both? A psychoanalytic account of ethical failures within organizationsBusiness Ethics 29 (1): 167-179. 2020.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 manag…Read more
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6Poverty and the Politics of CapitalismBusiness Ethics Quarterly 8 (S1): 31-35. 1998.1 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 no…Read more
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4Ruffin Series No. 4: Business, Science, and EthicsThe Ruffin Series of the Society for Business Ethics 4 3-3. 2004.
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20Tensions in Stakeholder TheoryBusiness and Society 59 (2): 213-231. 2020.A number of tensions have been suggested between stakeholder theory and strategic management (SM). Following a brief review of the histories of stakeholder theory and mainstream SM, we argue that many of the tensions are more apparent than real, representing different narratives about stakeholder theory, SM, business, and ethics. Part of the difference in these two theoretical positions is due to the fact that they seek to solve different problems. However, we suggest how there are areas of over…Read more
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University of VirginiaRegular Faculty
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
20th Century Philosophy |