Business Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility: an Analysis in the Light of Catholic Social Teaching with an Application to Whistle Blowing
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Date
2018
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Abstract
"The outcomes of a market economy depend on human behaviour within business organisations and this in turn is
closely related with our conceptions of organisational culture and corporate social responsibility. Markets cannot
be seen as ‘autonomous’ as is often suggested, but behaviour within markets is affected by the cultural
environment within which business organisations operate. The first insight of this paper is the importance of
culture in the economic sphere in influencing individual decision-making. Secondly, we point out that culture itself
is shaped by the decisions of human persons: culture is not exogenous. Thirdly, we argue that an important
aspect of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy within an organisation should be the promotion of
virtuous behaviour in order to help create a culture of virtue in the business sector more generally. It is concluded
that both individuals and companies have a responsibility to help foster a culture of virtue within the business
environment in which they operate which has ‘spillovers’ outside the organisation itself. A practical application of the ideas to the concept of ‘whistle blowing’ is proposed."
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Catholic social teaching, Artes y humanidades