Responsibility, Sustainability and Moral Judgement in International Corporations: A Review and Critique

Abstract

As moral actors, managers possess a range of values and norms which reflect, inter alia, training, education, cultural background, personality and business experience. When managers decide to act, their concern for the consequences of their actions lies at the heart of corporate responsibility. However, managers have no choice other than to pursue profitable growth based on economic efficiency, and you can't make a moral judgement based on economic efficiency. This tension, between moral judgement and neo-classical economics, brings into question whether corporate responsibility can indeed translate into sustainable business practice.