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Citizenship, Inc. Do We Really Want Businesses to Be Good Corporate Citizens?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Pierre-Yves Néron  and
Wayne Norman
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Abstract

Are there any advantages to thinking and speaking about ethical business in the language of citizenship? We will address this question in part by looking at the possible relevance of a vast literature on individual citizenship that has been produced by political philosophers over the last fifteen years. Some of the central elements of citizenship do not seem to apply straightforwardly to corporations. E.g., “citizenship” typically implies membership in a state and an identity akin to national identity; but this connotation of citizenship is obviously problematic for multinational corporations. However, the language of citizenship does help to focus our attention on various legal and political virtues (or vices) for corporations—topics that have been largely neglected by discussions under other rubrics, such as CSR or sustainability. We finish with an evaluation of the potential benefits and costs of conceptualizing and talking about ethical business practices in the language of citizenship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

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