Toward a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory

Donaldson, Thomas; Dunfee, Thomas W.

doi:10.2307/258705

Cited by 474 publications

(265 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

234

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, the principles of ISCT offer an intermediate position in which CSR is consistent across nations with respect to overall objectives, but differs according to factors that influence CSR in a given country. This approach aligns with ISCT's concept of "moral free space" which recognizes communities' right to "define moral norms for themselves" (Donaldson and Dunfee 1994). Country differences in CSR would occur within this "moral free space.…”

Section: This Paper Investigates the Following Overall Research Questmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…This field research investigates CSR in three countries selected to represent a range of level of economic development from high to low: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia. Donaldson and Dunfee's (1994) integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) provides a realistic and balanced approach to ethical decision-making that requires managers to consider firms' ethical obligations to respect local community norms without violating universal moral principles or "hypernorms." Although ISCT was formulated with individual decision-makers in mind, its balance of universalism and relativism (Spicer, Dunfee, & Bailey 2004) provides a promising normative approach to CSR.…”

Section: This Paper Investigates the Following Overall Research Questmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia

Robertson

2009

J Bus Ethics

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The U.S. and U.K. models of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are relatively well defined. As the phenomenon of CSR establishes itself more globally, the question arises as to the nature of CSR in other countries. Is a universal model of CSR applicable across countries or is CSR specific to country context? This article uses integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and four institutional factors -firm ownership structure, corporate governance, openness of the economy to international investment, and the role of civil society -to examine CSR in Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia. Field research results illustrate variation across the institutional factors and suggest that CSR is responsive to country differences. Research findings have implications for consideration of the tradeoff between global and local CSR priorities and practices. 2) corporate governance, 3) openness of the economy to international investment, and 4) the role of civil society. These institutional factors were chosen based on potential to affect the nature of CSR, with the expectation that country differences in these factors will lead to different characteristics of CSR.The following sections apply this conceptual framework to Singapore, Turkey, andEthiopia, ask what lessons can be learned from the CSR experiences of firms in these three countries, and conclude with implications for future research.4 Singapore, Turkey, and EthiopiaMethodology. Over the course of about a year I had the opportunity to spend approximately one week each in Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia (in that order) holding meetings and conducting interviews with academics, businesspeople, government leaders and members of NGOs. In both Turkey and Singapore I attended CSR conferences and spoke to fellow participants. My sample selection used a "snowball" technique to identify interviewees with one respondent leading me to another. My discussions followed an open-ended interview format with the basic structure of the interview contained in the Appendix. I took notes on these interviews and in some instances emailed respondents to collect more data. Where companies were named as exemplars of CSR, I gathered information on the companies' CSR initiatives from their websites.*************** Table 1 about here *************** These three countries were chosen because they presented opportunities for field research and because they are excellent examples of a well developed economy (Singapore), an economy that is rapidly growing (Turkey) and an underdeveloped economy (Ethiopia). Choosing such different countries allows for exploration of country differences in institutional factors and any resulting differences in CSR.Baseline Data. Turkey and Ethiopia are much larger countries than Singapore both in land mass and population (See Table 2). However, gross national income per person looks very different. Overall, the economic figures suggest that Singapore is vastly wealthier per capita and more developed than Turkey, and Turkey, in turn, is substantially more developed t...

show abstract

Section: This Paper Investigates the Following Overall Research Questmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: This Paper Investigates the Following Overall Research Questmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia

Robertson

2009

J Bus Ethics

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Immorality implies a violation of some moral standards, whereas a moral void means that there is no applicable moral standard at all (yet). A moral void also differs from what Donaldson and Dunfee (1994) Moral consensus, defined as the existence of strong ethical norms in a given situation, is an important condition for ethical leadership with respect to the moral manager and moral person (Brown and Treviño 2006). However, it is precisely the absence of moral consensus that creates room for moral entrepreneurship.…”

Section: Opportunity For Moral Entrepreneurship: Moral Issues and Mormentioning

confidence: 99%

The Moral Entrepreneur: A New Component of Ethical Leadership

Kaptein

2017

J Bus Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…give them the opportunity to verify if the management policies fulfill or not the social contract [68]. In addition, the nexus of causality between social disclosure and social performance can be read under the lens of the agency model.…”

Section: Corporate Social Disclosure As a Driver Of Corporate Social mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Virtuous Circle of Corporate Social Performance and Corporate Social Disclosure

Gangi¹,

D’Angelo²

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous literature in the field of corporate social responsibility investigates whether corporate social performance can be seen as a determinant of corporate social disclosure or, conversely, if corporate social disclosure is a determinant of corporate social performance. The aim of this paper is to join these two streams of research in a unique theoretical model, which can demonstrate that there is a mutual interaction between performance and disclosure. This can result, in the long run, in a virtuous circle where higher social performance generates future higher social disclosure and this determines higher future social performance and so on. An analytical model has been adopted to demonstrate the research hypothesis. Gathering data from the portfolios of the European Socially responsible funds (SRFs) listed on the Morningstar platform in 2010, the study analyzed 160 social reports published by 80 companies during 2008 and 2009. Findings, by demonstrating the non-one-way relationship between social performance and social disclosure, confirm the existence of a mutual influence between the results gained in different CSR areas and the capability to control and communicate such performance. In this way, the paper provides not only theoretical insights, but also practical implications for managers that are required to put in place responsive and effective initiatives towards the increasing pressure exerted by the internal and external environments in which they operate.

show abstract

Toward a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory

Cited by 474 publications

References 0 publications

Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia

Corporate Social Responsibility and Different Stages of Economic Development: Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia

The Moral Entrepreneur: A New Component of Ethical Leadership

The Virtuous Circle of Corporate Social Performance and Corporate Social Disclosure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About