Lecture 8 – Business Ethics
Tools and Reporting
Business Ethics Management
Mission or values statements • Codes of ethics • Reporting/advice channels • Risk analysis and
management • Ethics managers, officers and committees • Ethics consultants
Our Mission Statement Nestlé is... ...the world's leading nutrition, health and wellness company. Our
mission of "Good Food, Good Life" is to provide consumers with the best tasting, most nutritious
choices in a wide range of food and beverage categories and eating occasions, from morning to
night.
Ethics education and training • Stakeholder consultation, dialogue, partnership programmes •
Auditing, accounting, reporting and accountability
Managing Stakeholder Relations
• Perspectives in stakeholder relations: instrumental and normative • Salience of stakeholders
(Mitchell et al., 1997) – Power – Legitimacy – Urgency • Types of stakeholder relationship:
antagonistic relations, collaborative relations, etc.
Managing Stakeholder Relations
• Extended forms of stakeholder relationships: challenge; sparring partners; one-way support;
mutual support; endorsement; project dialogue; strategy dialogue; task force; joint venture or
alliance • Confrontational forms evident but shift toward more collaborative types of relationship •
More involvement of stakeholders = enhanced corporate accountability?
Problems with Stakeholder Collaboration
• Resource intensity • Culture clash • Schizophrenia • Uncontrollability • Co-optation •
Accountability • Resistance
Perspectives in Social and Environmental Accounting/Accountability (Brown and Fraser 2006)
• The business case: overriding focus on the financial implications, i.e. what’s in it for business and
shareholders? • Stakeholder accountability: a focus on increasing the transparency and
accountability of the organisation to its ‘stakeholders’ • Critical theory: concerned with exposing the
basic contradictions and exploitative aspects of the capitalist system
Assessing Ethical Performance
• “Social accounting is the voluntary process concerned with assessing and communicating activities
and impacts on social, ethical and environmental issues relevant to stakeholders.”
Tools and Reporting
Business Ethics Management
Mission or values statements • Codes of ethics • Reporting/advice channels • Risk analysis and
management • Ethics managers, officers and committees • Ethics consultants
Our Mission Statement Nestlé is... ...the world's leading nutrition, health and wellness company. Our
mission of "Good Food, Good Life" is to provide consumers with the best tasting, most nutritious
choices in a wide range of food and beverage categories and eating occasions, from morning to
night.
Ethics education and training • Stakeholder consultation, dialogue, partnership programmes •
Auditing, accounting, reporting and accountability
Managing Stakeholder Relations
• Perspectives in stakeholder relations: instrumental and normative • Salience of stakeholders
(Mitchell et al., 1997) – Power – Legitimacy – Urgency • Types of stakeholder relationship:
antagonistic relations, collaborative relations, etc.
Managing Stakeholder Relations
• Extended forms of stakeholder relationships: challenge; sparring partners; one-way support;
mutual support; endorsement; project dialogue; strategy dialogue; task force; joint venture or
alliance • Confrontational forms evident but shift toward more collaborative types of relationship •
More involvement of stakeholders = enhanced corporate accountability?
Problems with Stakeholder Collaboration
• Resource intensity • Culture clash • Schizophrenia • Uncontrollability • Co-optation •
Accountability • Resistance
Perspectives in Social and Environmental Accounting/Accountability (Brown and Fraser 2006)
• The business case: overriding focus on the financial implications, i.e. what’s in it for business and
shareholders? • Stakeholder accountability: a focus on increasing the transparency and
accountability of the organisation to its ‘stakeholders’ • Critical theory: concerned with exposing the
basic contradictions and exploitative aspects of the capitalist system
Assessing Ethical Performance
• “Social accounting is the voluntary process concerned with assessing and communicating activities
and impacts on social, ethical and environmental issues relevant to stakeholders.”
