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Principles and Practices for Corporate Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Patricia H. Werhane
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Abstract:

The first issue of Business Ethics Quarterly was launched in 1991. At that time there were few general principles that could serve as guidelines for global business. However, since 1991 a plethora of such principles have been developed to serve as guidelines and evaluative mechanisms for global corporate responsibilities. But operationalizing these principles in practice has been a challenge for most transnational corporations and even for smaller, more local enterprises. This is because, in some cases, the principles ask too much of companies. In other cases, the principles are ambiguous. And in still other cases, the principles, written by and large from a Western, rights-based perspective, cannot be operationalized in some cultural or religious settings. In this paper I will outline a series of dilemmas multinational enterprises face in the global market place, even when they sincerely sign on to one or another set of principles. These problems are not insurmountable, but in the imperfect world of commerce, require that our expectations of corporate responsibilities be satisficing rather than absolutist.

Type
BEQ’s Twentieth Anniversary: Editorial Reflections and Comments
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 695 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2010

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