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Framing Business Ethical Discourses: How Moderation and Compromise Gravitate Towards Activism

  • Marianne Thejls Ziegler EMAIL logo and Christoph Lütge
Published/Copyright: March 13, 2025
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Zusammenfassung

Dieser Artikel stellt die Mechanismen des thematischen Framings von Unternehmensethik in Frage. Wir befassen uns mit zwei Beispielen: Stakeholder-Theorie und politische CSR. Beide Theoriekomplexe können den grundlegenden Ansichten des konsensorientierten, sozialliberalen Denkens zugeschrieben werden. Wir argumentieren, dass in beiden Fällen das Framing unternehmensethischer Fragestellungen eine Polarität erzeugt, welche die Unternehmen als alleinverantwortlich für viele gesellschaftliche Probleme darstellt. Diese Polarität ist aber mit grundlegenden Ansichten des sozialliberalen Denkens nicht vereinbar und bewegt sich daher letztlich in Richtung einer radikalen Kapitalismuskritik.

Abstract

The article examines the role of academic business ethics in relation to societal discourse on the relation between corporations, their stakeholders and society in general. It distinguishes between models of interaction across social and political divides. In the first communicative agency model is rooted in enlightenment ideas. The second agonistic model sees parties as interacting in relations of exploitative power relations and is rooted in Marxist ideas. The article also distinguishes three categories within business ethics: Shareholder primacy, social-liberal stakeholder theory and PCSR and Anti-corporatism. We argue that the framing of business ethics exclusively in terms of corporate responsibility and the corresponding silence with regards to civil responsibility creates a gravity of theories like Freemans original stakeholder theory and early versions of political CSR, towards fundamental and agonistic anti-corporatism.


Note

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. All co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and there is no financial interest to report. We certify that the submission is original work and is not under review at any other publication.


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Published Online: 2025-03-13
Published in Print: 2025-08-27

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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