The authors posit that one should not take a binary approach to business ethics because there are gradations. They propose that firms may be classified according to the following metric: Level I: The Totally Unethical Organization; Level II: The Legalistic Unethical Organization; Level III: The...

We critically assess integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and show that the concept particularly lacks of moral justification of substantive hypernorms. By drawing on Habermasian philosophy, in particular discourse ethics and its recent application in the theory of deliberative democracy,...

In a segmented waiting-line system, customers are segmented into two groups: those who are willing to wait for service and those who are willing to pay a premium to avoid a long wait. The use of waiting line segmentation has been shown to result in increased profit for the company or...

A firm that manages for stakeholders allocates more resources to satisfy the needs and demands of its legitimate stakeholders than would be necessary to simply retain their willful participation in the firm's productive activities. We explain why this sort of behavior unlocks additional...

International stehen Forderungen im Raum, die betriebswirtschaftliche Ausbildung so auszurichten, dass sie der gesellschaftlichen Verantwortung von Unternehmen einen systematischen Stellenwert beimisst. Der hierfür erforderliche Dialog zwischen BWL und Unternehmensethik kommt jedoch derzeit...

This paper argues that the perspective of ordonomic - a rational-choice based analysis of (interdependencies between) social structure and semantics - can provide new insights into the changing role of business in society. We claim (a) that the proper role of business is societal value creation,...

Der Artikel entwickelt in Auseinandersetzung mit Alfred Krupps Wohlfahrtsprogramm aus dem 19. Jahrhundert einen ordonomischen Beitrag, wie Unternehmen 'Moral als Produktionsfaktor' einsetzen können. Die These dieses Beitrags lautet, dass "Corporate Social Responsibility" als strategisches...

We theoretically analyse the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and tax avoidance of an oligopolistic firm. The firm maximises a weighted sum of profits and a CSR objective which depends on output and the firm's contribution to public good provision, i.e. tax payments....

It is commonly believed that the choice of adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) behaviours is beyond the scope of profit enhancement. In a unionised oligopoly with centralised wage setting and decreasing returns to scale technology, the present paper shows that the owners' choice of...

Freedom of choice is often thought to improve efficiency. We experimentally investigate the effect of giving workers a choice between compensation schemes with and without a CSR component (CSR/NoCSR) on labor market participation decision and work performance, compared to the alternative of...