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From CR‐psychopaths to responsible corporations: waking up the inner Sleeping Beauty of companies
Author(s) -
Ketola Tarja
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
corporate social responsibility and environmental management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.519
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1535-3966
pISSN - 1535-3958
DOI - 10.1002/csr.113
Subject(s) - beauty , virtue , kiss (tnc) , business , public relations , virtue ethics , corporate social responsibility , marketing , psychology , management , law , political science , economics , computer network , computer science
Many large companies seem to fulfil the psychiatric criteria for psychopaths in their corporate responsibility (CR) practices. Are they really incurable psychopaths, or is it possible that they could be counselled into accepting their responsibilities? CR studies have so far paid little attention to the variations in the CR emphases between different companies. This article, based on a conference paper (Ketola, 2005b), presents a CR emphasis model, pinpointing eight different approaches to corporate responsibility. Some companies do not voluntarily take any responsibilities. Companies acting like psychopaths need a Prince of Virtues to kiss awake their inner Sleeping Beauty from its 100‐year irresponsibility sleep. All companies could take advantage of virtue ethics, which present the values shared by all humans, and hence exemplify the natural law ( lex naturae ). Counselling top managers and key individuals on their personal and professional values enables all personnel to integrate virtues into the company's CR practices. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.