Responsibility, Ethics and Legitimacy of Corporations

Citation

Dahl Rendorff, J. (2009), "Responsibility, Ethics and Legitimacy of Corporations", Society and Business Review, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 266-268. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465680910994245

Jacob Dahl Rendhorff is an Associate Professor of Responsibility, Ethics and Legitimacy of Corporations at the Department Communication, Business and Information Technology at Roskilde University (Denmark). Rendhorff received his PhD at university of Copenhagen. He also holds degrees in philosophy and political science from the University of Paris and Freie Universität of Berlin. Rendhorff has a background in research in ethics, business ethics, bioethics, political theory and philosophy of law and has written on issues of existentialism and hermeneutics, French philosophy, business ethics as well as philosophy of law. Therefore, Rendhorff is not the usual “management or business” scholar writing on business responsibility or ethics. Presently his researches are on business ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate legitimacy, stakeholder theory and the philosophy of management. More precisely, Rendhorff's focuses are on the relations between ethics and economics, ethical strategy of corporations, leadership and stakeholders.

Concepts like business ethics, CSR, corporate citizenship, values‐driven management, corporate governance and ethical leadership gain more and more influence in the every business life of shareholders, managers and employees, reaching as far as to the consumer. There are also a, nowadays, mainstream of academicals researches in management. In that context, Responsibility, Ethics and Legitimacy of Corporations is a complete and thorough analysis of the political question of the corporations. The book is made of five parts.

The introduction is the first one. It presents the background, the major theoretical concepts and the methodology of the book. In the introduction, Rendhorff quickly precises that:

[…] this book argues that business ethics, value driven management, and corporate social responsibility are standards of governance that make it possible to conceive of the corporation as both an economic instrument and a good corporate citizen.

The starting point is the republican sentiment or the Ricoeur's approach of the “good life with and for others in just institutions” which is realized through the basic ethical principal of “autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability”. Rendhorff is convinced that corporations should not be able to operate without ethical values and social responsibility. The theoretical framework combines three major theoretical approaches: organization studies and institutional theory; CSR and political theory; business ethics and stakeholder analysis. Rendhorff also precises that the theoretical research informing his book can be defined “as hermeneutical or interpretative social science”. Therefore, Rendhorff appears as a Ricoeur's heir or disciple. The introduction underlines also the major impact of globalization on the political question of the corporations as well from a theoretical than from practical (or governmental) point of view.

The second part “Globalization, values driven management and business ethics” contains three chapters that can be considered as a complete and a major “literature review” about the values face to markets, global capitalism, organizations and management. The second part is closed by the chapter three “From values‐driven management to business ethics”. The third part of the book: “Business ethics and corporate social responsibility in different fields of business” is made of five chapters, the first four preparing the last one. Rendhorff first explores the CSR at the light of ethics, law and economics in order to introduce what he called “stakeholder justice”. Rendhorff first explore the internal and external ethics constituencies of the corporation and the environmental dimensions of business ethics. Rendhorff argues that ethical principles are the basis of sustainability. Rendhorff closes the third part by proposing his model of the corporation of the future: the good citizen corporation! For Rendhorff, the firm – at least the corporation – is conceptualized as a collective and institutional moral agent. After having dealt with the conceptual aspects, in the part four, Rendhorff tackles the practical or governmental aspects of the political question of the corporation since this part is about the value‐driven management, business ethics, CSR or corporate citizenship policies that are conducted in the USA or Europe. Rendhorff proposes also some ethical guidelines for international business corporations. The part five is more micro since it focuses on corporate strategy by proposing “basic ethical principles for business and corporate citizenship”.

Rendhorff's last opus is an important book for those who are interesting by or working in the society and business field for at least two reasons. First, his book presents an extensive and profound review of all the theoretical movements that are trying to think the relation between society and enterprises. Second, Rendhorff's book is far beyond the mainstream approaches of business ethics, CSR, value driven management, etc. since it proposes a political philosophy interpretation of the corporation. Starting from the Ricoeur's approach Rendhorff is able to link (or to tie) ethical behaviour of the corporation, as a moral agent, to the political level of the city throughout the ethical/political principals of autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability. It may be lake some developments – or interpretations – about firm philanthropy or public affairs and business. Those two items seem to be debated within a political philosophy framework of the corporations. Nevertheless, this book can be warmly recommended even if it needs a real background in the field to be profitable.