Dismemberment,divorce and hostile takeovers: A comment on corporate moral personhood

We can explain our intuitions about corporate takeover cases by appeal to Peter French's picture of the corporation as a moral person. He argues that corporations are persons in much the same sense as you and I, and are entitled to the same rights as humans. On this analysis, takeovers are murders, attempted murders, attempts to enslave, etc. I want to explore the consequences of this view for corporate takeovers. I shall argue that, though French can explain why our moral intuitions seem to arise in response to some concern about the corporations themselves, his analysis commits us to the wrong intuitions in some cases. I shall then offer an account of these intuitions which focuses on the character of corporations.Rita C. Manning is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State University. She has published widely — on Artificial Intelligence, Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy of Law, Social and Political Philosophy, and Informal Logic, in addition to Business Ethics. She is currently working on a Feminist critique of Moral Philosophy.     

Hostile takeovers and methods of defense: A stakeholder analysis

During the last decade, there has been a wave of mergers and hostile takeovers throughout the corporate world. This wave has been accompanied by various defensive strategies of managers to defend target firms from these takeovers. These include: greenmail, golden parachutes, and leveraged management buyouts. This paper examines hostile takeovers and defenses against them from a stakeholder point of view; that is, from a consideration of the various obligations a firm has to the different groups that have a stake in the firm. I conclude that many stakeholders, such as workers and communities, have unjustly suffered as a result of hostile takeovers and the associated defenses, and that their rights as stakeholders have been violated. Finally, I suggest some possible reforms to protect these stakeholders in the future.Ken Hanly is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, at Brandon University. His interests are in business ethics and social philosophy. Recent publications include The Ethics of Rent Control in JBE 10(3) (1991), and a review ofBusiness Ethics, by R. De George, inCanadian Philosophical Reviews, Vol xi(3) (June, 1991). An article on The Moral Responsibility of Corporations is upcoming in Dialogue.     

Analysing moral issues in stakeholder relations

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for analysing managers' attitudes toward moral issues in stakeholder relations, and to operationalise the developed framework by defining statements to be used as empirical measures in survey research. The research question, how can moral issues in business be examined with the stakeholder approach, is answered by paying attention to both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. The paper reveals that by analysing a company's stakeholder relations, we can discover the important moral issues in business. To validate the framework developed and the empirical measures which result, the development process is described in detail. The argument is that making the development process visible is an important task in validating empirical measures in survey research. As a result of the research process, a total of 50 moral issues in eight stakeholder relations are identified, and operationalised with 58 itemised statements. The final conclusion is that the empirical measures developed in this paper are suitable for measuring moral issues in stakeholder relations, and that they can later be used in analysing real life managers' perceptions of moral issues in stakeholder relations.     

In defense of social responsibility

The purpose of the present article is to argue against the minimalist theory of social responsibility (i.e., that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize profit in conformity with law), particularly as it is advanced by Butler D. Shaffer. Against this view, I argue that such a theory does not necessarily support or achieve greater levels of corporate efficiency than does a more demanding theory of social responsibility, and that the argument for the former view is no more valueneutral than for the latter. Finally, I argue that Shaffer fails to show that the more maximal theory demands too much from executives and is too unclear to be applicable to their decision-making.     

In defense of social responsibility

Recent journalistic criticism of the concept of corporate social responsibility rests on the assertion that social responsibility adds nothing to corporate profits. Hence, inclusion of the motion in the business vocabulary amounts to nothing more than “double talk.”The author of an influential 1953 book on the topic took another look at social responsibility twenty-five years later and found “few gains in the quality of business stewardship over that time.” The idea “remains peripheral to the mainstream of economic thought.”Corporate social responsibility involves more than simply being a law-abiding corporate citizen. It reaches into these decision-making areas where perfectly legal choices may have harmful social consequences. As evidence of social harm amounts, society has to define and defend the ground on which it requires an appropriate response from the business corporation. Society will get the response it demands.     

Images of Native Americans in advertising: Some moral issues

Images of Native Americans and of aspects of Native American culture are common in advertisements in the United States. Three such images can be distinguished — the Noble Savage, the Civilizable Savage and the Bloodthirsty Savage images. The aim of this paper is to argue that the use of such images is not morally acceptable because these images depend upon an underlying conception of Native Americans that denies that they are human beings. By so doing, it also denies to them any moral standing and thus any claim to moral consideration and treatment. I begin by arguing that the traits which are distinctively human are fostered only within a cultural framework consisting of the accumulated knowledge and activities of a group of human beings. I then argue that savages are conceptualized as natural and cultureless beings. Furthermore, within the traditional Western conceptualization of the world mere natural objects have no moral standing. Thus, it follows that Native Americans insofar as they are also merely natural objects would have no standing or status as moral beings. The conception of Native Americans as savages undercuts the very conditions for the possibility of moral respect. I then turn to an application of these principles to some current commercial uses of images of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples.Dr. Michael K. Green, Ph.D. in Philosophy, has published inPolitical Theory, The New Scholasticism, The Journal of Business Ethics, andSocial Theory and Practice, as well as various other journals. He was president of MKG Enterprises, Inc., for six years and is a fellow at the Hartwick Humanities in Management Leadership Institute.     

In search of the moral manager

Because the business landscape is cluttered with amoral and immoral managers, moral managers are hard to find. What can be done to develop moral judgment in managers so that the good forces out the bad and the indifferent?     

In defense of enlightened hardball management

What can we learn from bygone successes? How can we get moving again? The authors offer an action agenda that managers can start on immediately.     

A menu of moral issues: One week in the life of The Wall Street Journal

A menu of twelve moral issues that seem to be common to all organizations is described and illustrated. This menu identifies some of the most prominent moral issues requiring individuals to decide where to draw the line between moral and immoral conduct. A review ofThe Wall Street Journal during just one week provided over sixty articles illustrating how moral issues are inherent in almost every business decision. The articles included several illustrations of stealing, lying, and fraud that are immoral, although in some cases not technically illegal. Other articles illustrated conflicts of interest, influence buying, hiding information, divulging personal information, taking unfair advantage, personal decadence, interpersonal abuse, organizational abuse, rule violations, being an accessory to unethical acts, and balancing ethical dilemmas. These illustrations are intended to help individuals identify moral issues and recognize the situations when they arise so they can avoid unwitting immoral behavior.Jay Owen Cherrington is the Coordinator of the Information Systems faculty of the Marriott School of Management at BYU. He is a CPA and participates as a member of the AICPA. He is the author of many research articles and four college textbooks. Dr. Cherrington serves as a consultant and instructor for several major organizations including Ernst & Young and IBM.David Jack Cherrington holds the Nyal D. and Bette McMullin professorship in Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He received a DBA and has taught at the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin — Madison, Brigham Young University, and BYU — Hawaii. He is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources and serves on the HRCI Board. He is the author of over 40 research articles and five books, including two texts:Organizational Behavior, and The Management of Human Resources.     

The use of stakeholder analysis to understand ethical and moral issues in the primary resource sector

The mineral resources sector is critical to Australia's economic and social well-being. Minerals and energy have a value of $30 billion in export revenues, providing 50 percent of Australia's merchandise exports. The industry is characterized by substantial capital investment and very long lead times for project developments and a very competitive international market. The future direction and location of the industry is inextricably linked to long term exploration activities. The industry is faced with a far more complex set of environments than most. The paper identifies the range of complex issues and the wide variety of players using a stakeholder analysis. By monitoring such interactions, and knowing the objective set of the parties, a guide could be established to define moral and ethical frameworks for each interaction.Frederick Frost is an Associate Professor, Curtin Business School. He has the degrees of Bachelor and Master in Metallurgical Engineering, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and MBA.     

The role of moral intensity in moral judgments: An empirical investigation

Jones (1991) has proposed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making by individuals in organizations. The distinguishing feature of the issue was identified as its moral intensity, which determines the moral imperative in the situation. In this study, we adapted three scenarios from the literature in order to examine the issue-contingent model. Findings, based on a student sample, suggest that (1) the perceived and actual dimensions of moral intensity often differed; (2) perceived moral intensity variables, in the aggregate, significantly affected an individual's moral judgments; and (3) some dimensions of moral intensity (namely, perceived social consensus and perceived magnitude of consequences) mattered more than others.Sara A. Morris is Assistant Professor of Management at Old Dominion University. Her current research examines corporate codes of ethics, attitudes about corporate social responsibility, and the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.Robert A. McDonald is a doctoral candidate in organizational studies at the State University of New York at Albany. His research interests include ethical decision making, characteristics of moral dilemmas, and leadership power and influence tactics.     

In search of a fitting moral psychology for practical wisdom: Exploring a missing link in virtuous management

While business as a social activity has involved communities of persons embedded in dense relational networks and practices for thousands of years, the modern legal, theoretical psychological, and moral foundations of business have progressively narrowed our understanding of practical wisdom. Although practical wisdom has recently regained ground in business ethics and management studies, thanks mainly to Anscombe's recovery of virtue ethics, Anscombe herself once observed that it lacks, and has even neglected, a moral psychology that genuinely complements the nuanced philosophical perspective of a virtue-centered moral philosophy. Herein, we offer one way to fill this gap by suggesting two opposing psychological paradigms, namely the inter-processual self and the autonomous self, which are classified according to the assumptions they make about the self, human agency and action more broadly, as well as how they relate to practical wisdom. Upon presenting these moral psychologies, we will bring this proposal into conversation with business ethics to show how the IPS paradigm can enable and support virtuous management.     

Moral dilemmas,moral reasons and moral learning: interpreting a real case in terms of particularistic theory

The core of the paper consists of dialogue from a true case where an employee experienced moral dilemmas following a disquieting directive from his manager. The case is considered from the perspective of Dancy's particularistic theory of moral reasons (with some insight also from Ross's theory of prima facie duties). This case was chosen not to illustrate the theory, but rather to test the assumption that an approach to moral judgement based on Ross and Dancy has general applicability. It is suggested that, in its simplest form, that approach approximates to the manner in which people in organisations, without prior knowledge of ethical theorising, would ordinarily deal with comparable situations, and so it can be relatively easy to learn given practice. Based on this case, some insight is also offered into individuals' moral learning, including their need for personal qualities such as assertiveness and independence of mind. In that context a reciprocal relationship between Dancy's approach and Werhane's thinking on moral imagination is suggested.     

Managerial response to a hostile takeover in an uncertain legal environment: The case of union carbide

Following the tragedy at its Bhopal, India plant. Union Carbide found itself the object of a hostile takeover attempt in 1985. In spite of great uncertainty regarding its final legal liability, Union Carbide's management opposed the offer and began an aggressive program of asset and financial restructuring. From an analysis of the performance of Union Carbide's common stock, Sant and Ferris find that the financial impact of the Bhopal accident was dissipated within a year. Using additional accounting and industry data, they draw universal conclusions regarding the international management of complex technologies and firm valuation in the presence of foreign legal threats.     

浅谈德育教育在体育教学中的渗透

培养优良的品德是各个学科的重要内容,体育学科具有其独特的作用,学校体育教育不仅仅是强体魄、长知识、增技能.更重要的一方面是让学生的思想道德素质得到培养和发展.在体育教学中进行德育渗透,关键在于结合学生的实际,有的放矢地贯穿于教学的各个环节之中.     

The central distinction in the theory of corporate moral personhood

Peter French has argued that conglomerate collectivities such as business corporations are moral persons and that aggregate collectivities such as lynch mobs are not. Two arguments are advanced to show that French's claim is flawed. First, the distinction between aggregates and conglomerates is, at best, a distinction of degree, not kind. Moreover, some aggregates show evidence of moral personhood. Second, French's criterion for distinguishing aggregates and conglomerates is based on inadequate grounds. Application of the criterion to specific cases requires an additional judgment of a pragmatic nature which undermines any attempt to demonstrate French's thesis that actual conglomerates are moral persons and aggregates are not. Thus, French's theory is seriously lacking both empirical basis and empirical relevance.