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Virtuous Enterprises
Otte, Jan Thomas
Otte, Jan Thomas
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no33-otte.pdf
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"The term ‘responsibility’ is derived from the Latin ‘responsabilis’, which means the ability to respond to the obligations and expectations of others. To recognize these responsibilities, managers tend to use a mixture of intuition and rationality. But is it true that only individual persons can be responsible, as they have a conscience? In this context, it is certainly much easier for medium- sized and small companies to live virtuously according to the principles of CSR then it is for bigger companies. Do companies really have a character and, therefore, can they be made responsible for things? Peter French (1984) initiated this debate 20 years ago: ‘certainly a corporation doing something […] usually can be described as having reasons for [its] behaviour. In fact, by virtue of those descriptions they [companies] may be properly held responsible for their behaviour, ceteris paribus’. In his argumentation, saying that companies, as well as employees and managers, have a character which includes responsibility, French also uses the terms ‘reason’, ‘desires’, ‘intentions’, and ‘decision-making’ which support the focus on the character of individuals in CSR. In jurisprudence, companies usually are considered as judicial persons."(pg 87)
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2009
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With permission of the license/copyright holder