Editorial

Citation

Pesqueux, Y. (2008), "Editorial", Society and Business Review, Vol. 3 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sbr.2008.29603caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Society and Business Review, Volume 3, Issue 3

When I discussed publications with Thomas Dunfee in Philadelphia during the Trans Atlantic Business Ethics Conference he organised at Wharton in October 2006, I would have never guessed that this issue containing two papers and another one indirectly related with that event would occur after his death.

Dear Thomas, we are thinking of the energy you have deployed during your academic life to develop business ethics. As Editor of Society and Business Review as well as Henry Sweetbaum, Josep Lozano and Eleanor O’Higgins, we join our voice to underline the great contribution you made to the study of the relations between society and business. We shall not forget it.

This issue will be devoted to the publication of two papers directly delivered at this conference and then re-written for this issue. Henry Sweetbaum delivered a speech on “Socially responsible capitalism” during the gala dinner. More than a speech reduced to a social event, he wanted to make us think about some of the key postulates in management education. It is why Thomas Dunfee and I wanted you to share these arguments. Josep Lozano did in a way the same thing in his paper “CSR or RSC? (Beyond the Humpty Dumpty syndrome)”. It would not be possible to study CSR debate associated with the business practices that are linked to it without studying the underlying corporate business model (RSC for “responsible and sustainable corporation”).

These two papers are an archetype of normative approaches of society and business relationships as well as Sharon Gyves and Eleanor O’Higgins’ paper (“Corporate social responsibility: an avenue for sustainable benefit for society and the firm?”), paper based on interviews with senior managers from companies active about CSR initiatives study allowing some conclusions about the dilemma shareholders/Stakeholders demands.

The two last papers are completely built on other issues. In “Conjectures on systemic psychopathy: reframing the contemporary corporation”, Mark Wexler is doing a contribution belonging to psychopathy in organisations, the same field than the contribution done by Pech and Slade in volume 2, issue 2 but in a different way. He emphasises the presence of psychopathy in organization more than on psychopaths. Chris Skinner and Gary Mersham are studying “Corporate social responsibility in South Africa” according to the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) which have been developed in Africa by African governments.

Yvon Pesqueux