philosophy, corporate strategy, industry characteristics, the state of the economy, and other such mitigating conditions, but the four component parts provide management with a skeletal outline of the nature and kinds of their CSR. In frank, action-oriented terms, business is called upon to: be profitable, obey the law, be ethical, and be a good corporate citizen. The stakeholder management perspective provides not only a language and way to personalize relationships with names and faces, but also some useful conceptual and analytical concepts for diagnosing, analyzing, and prioritizing an organization’s relationships and strategies. Fffective organizations will progress beyond stakeholder identification and question what opportunities and threats are posed by stakeholders; what economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities they have; and what strategies, actions or decisions should be pursued to most effectively address these responsibilities. The stakeholder/responsibility matrix provides a template management might use to organize its analysis and decision making. Throughout the article we have been building toward the notion of an improved ethical organizational climate as manifested by moral management. Moral management was defined and described through a contrast with immoral and amoral management. Because the business landscape is replete with immoral and amoral managers, moral managers may sometimes be hard to find. Regardless, their characteristics have been identified and, most important, their perspective or orientation towards the major stakeholder groups has been profiled. These stakeholder orientation profiles give managers a conceptual but practical touchstone for sorting out the different categories or types of ethical (or not-so-ethical) behavior that may be found in business and other organizations. It has often been said that leadership by example is the most effective way to improve business ethics. If that is true, moral management provides a model leadership perspective or orientation that managers may wish to emulate. One great fear is that managers may think they are providing ethical leadership just by rejecting immoral management. However, amoral management, particularly the unintentional variety, may unconsciously prevail if managers are not aware of what it is and of its dangers. At best, amorality represents ethical neutrality, and this notion is not tenable in the society of the 1990s. The standard must be set high, and moral management provides the best exemplar of what that lofty
standard might embrace. Further, moral management, to be fully appreciated, needs to be seen within the context of organization-stakeholder relationships. It is toward this singular goal that our entire discussion has focused. If the “good society” is to become a realization, such a high expectation only naturally becomes the aspiration and preoccupation of management. •
References
R.W. Ackerman and R.A. Bauer, Corporate Social Responsiveness (Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing Co, 1976). A.B. Carroll, “A Three-Dimensional Conceptual Model of Corporate Social Performance,” Academy of Management Review, 4, 4 (1979): 497-505. A.B. Carroll, “In Search of the Moral Manager,” Business Horizons, March-April 1987, pp. 7-15. Committee for Economic Development, Social Responsibilities of Business Corporations (New York: CED, 1971). K. Davis, “Can Business Afford to Ignore its Social Responsibilities?” California Management Review, 2, 3 (I960): 70-76: R. Eelis and C. Walton, Conceptual Foundations of Business ()/{omewooà. 111.: Richard D. Irwin, 196l). “Good Timing, Charlie,” Forbes, November 27, 1989, pp. 140-144. W.C. Frederick, “From CSR^ to CSR^: The Maturing of Business and Society Thought,” University of Pittsburgh Working Paper No. 279, 1978. M. Friedman, “The Sociai Responsibility of Business Is to Increase its Profits,” New York Times, September 13, 1970, pp. 122-126. S.P. Sethi, “Dimensions of Corporate Sociai Responsibility,” California Management Review, 17,’5 (1975): 58-64.
Archie B. Carroll is Robert W, Scherer Professor of Management and Corporate Public Affairs at the College ot Business Administration, University of Georgia, Athens.
Business Horizons / July-August 1991
Xi. –
PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT 🙂