By Prof. Dr. Thomas Beschorner for FORUM CSR international

Against the background of the realization that the political framework is imperfect, resulting in the insight that the rules of the game as well as the moves of the actors are important, business ethicists deal with the issues of corruption, conditions of production in the so called developing nations, child labor, violation of human rights, fi nancial scandals, cuts in employment rights and serious environmental destruction. For several years now, more and more new conceptions related to issues of business ethics like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Citizenship (CC) or Corporate Governance (CG) have appeared. But what are these terms all about? How can you differentiate these concepts in a meaningful way in order to really express a difference that gives us a rough idea about the possible benefi ts compared to a traditional business model?

The use of these concepts is not primarily the result of academic creations. Rather, they reflect actual problems in business practices and are owed to the increasing pressure for moral legitimation. In particular, spectacular corporate scandals contribute to a sensitization of the public to all varieties of immoral behavior. Changing social expectations regarding the legitimation of corporations primarily explain the increasing relevance of ethical considerations in the corporate practice. As organizational sociology suggests, companies respond to these demands of their organizational environment by creating management concepts with fashionable terms like the ones above in order to indicate the adoption of these demands. Therefore, these concepts have an important social function. Ethical values and economic advantages can coincide. From an ethical point of view, there is nothing wrong with seeking an appropriate synthesis of microeconomic logic and social values. However, corporate profit seeking cannot be the “ultima ratio”.

The social obligation of companies
I endorse an understanding of corporate ethics in which corporate practices include the voluntary integration of ethical, social and ecological aspects, expressing the company’s social obligation, in fact, beyond the obligations to shareholders, beyond the established laws and union contracts. To put it positively, it is about the civil commitment of companies in modern society. It stresses the fundamental consideration of general interests instead of the particular interest of corporate profi ts. The term Corporate Citizenship seems to express adequately the above-formulated idea of civil commitment on part of the companies, as CC explicitly ties in with a civil tradition of liberal civil duties and republican civil rights. I suggest Corporate Social Responsibility as an important – maybe even vital – mode for the realization of CC, because the concept of respons(e)ibility has a dialogical factor.

Business ethics need to be emancipated
From a normative perspective, this dialogue (following fair rules) affects the necessity of questioning, discussing and deliberating about every single concern of the role of companies in society. This illustrates the fact that CSR and CC are primarily not about “ethics of bounty”, but rather the extension of ethical issues into the core business of companies (in particular products, production process, marketing). Furthermore, this indicates that companies and business ethics are to be emancipated from a passive role of assimilation to frameworks, which they play especially in the context of Corporate Governance discussions. CG in the sense of internal control and risk management systems is necessary for business ethics, yet not sufficient. I assess the theoretical, empirical and practical challenges of business ethics in asking what active contributions companies can make to a fair economy and society, even to what extent they help to transform economy and society toward that effect. In my opinion, issues of business ethics do not concern microeconomic problems of companies but rather a social set of problems partly caused by the companies. It stands to reason they could also help to overcome these problems.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Beschorner is DAAD professor at Montreal University, Canada and director of the internet platform CSR NEWS ([1] www.csr-news.net).
[2] thomas.beschorner@umontreal.ca

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