Ethical Firm System and Stakeholder Management Theories: A Possible Convergence

Abstract

This paper presents a model for exploring the relationships between the stakeholder management theory (SMT) and the firm system theory (FST) which are interpreted from an ethical perspective. FST forms part of the Italian economia aziendale or business administration studies. The author proposes to include SMT in an ethical application of FST (EFST, ethical firm system theory), where ethical duties are considered to be strictly linked to the management of the firm system (mutatis mutandis, such as production, marketing, finance and so on). Such a metaphorical merger is useful for many purposes. In particular, this paper focuses on the use of EFST to tackle three important and critical ethical points of SMT (the dichotomy between economic success and ethics, stakeholder engagement and ethical responsibility and competition in a cooperative, but not corporatist context), without changing the essential nature of the managerial idea underlying SMT, but inserting it in EFST with mutual benefits for both approaches.