The Political Role of Corporations
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(1) During the past decades the traditional clear-cut division of labor between market and state, between business and politics increasingly reaches its limits (Margolis and Walsh 2003). Traditionally, the task of the state government is to act as a rule-giver: to design and to enforce functional rules for the market economy. Within these rules, the traditional role of the company is to act as a rule-taker:...
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Business and human rights has grown as a significant area of international policy and practice over the past 20 years and can be characterized by a diverse range of challenges for businesses, states and civil society alike. Ten of these key challenges are briefly described here and then an overview of the rule-making response is given. This can be categorized into five phases, in which the role of...
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This chapter critically discusses the thesis of ‘politization of companies’ developed by some academic scholars. The ‚Good Company Ranking’ of Manager Magazin screened the social engagement of EuroStoxx and DAX listed companies biannualy from 2005 onwards. The architecture of the Ranking in general and the criteria for Corporate Citizenship Engagement in particular are explained. Drawing on best practice...
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Private regulatory regimes have emerged as an increasingly important component of global social ordering, with potentially significant implications for corporate decision-making and the conventional theory of the firm and corporate governance, institutionalization of the values of corporate citizenship, and understandings of the technologies of business ethics. Private regulatory regimes do not operate...
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The chapter presents the notion of organizational integrity as an expression of the ideal moral and political unity of a corporation. We begin with a discussion of the relation between individual and organizational integrity. After this the chapter elaborates the problems of building and maintaining integrity in corporations: the concept of organizational integrity. Moreover, we analyze the dimensions...
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This chapter discusses how the theoretical perspective of ordonomics provides a framework for better understanding and advancing the practice of social entrepreneurship. From an ordonomic perspective, the concept of social entrepreneurship offers a semantic innovation (at the ideas level) whose potential for social innovation can be fully reaped only if it is used as a heuristics for social structural...
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Through an analysis of Alfred Krupp’s 19th-century social welfare program, this chapter employs an ordonomic perspective on how morality can be employed as a factor of production. The chapter’s main argument is that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be conceptualized as a corporate strategy of moral commitments. Such strategic commitments help to manage the relationship-based risks that arise...
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This chapter examines the implications of the new governance for corporate governance. The main conclusion of this examination is that both the new governance and corporate governance have resulted from broader changes in the competitive environment of business. The main features of these changes are shifts from hierarchical, vertically-integrated firms dependent primarily on financial capital to...
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Listed German stock corporations have to agree a personal deductible if the company has taken out a D&O (directors’ and officers’ liability insurance) policy for its management board. A deductible rules that, in the event of litigation, portions of the loss have to be borne personally by the insured individuals and aims at fostering responsible behavior. The present chapter analyzes the underlying...
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The purpose of this chapter is to develop an ordonomic conceptualization of corporate citizenship and new governance that (a) provides a framework for positively explaining the political participation of companies in new governance processes and (b) does not weaken but instead strengthens the functional role of corporations as economic actors in the market system of value creation. To this end, we...
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