Abstract
Stakeholder theory has become one of the most important developments in the field of business ethics. While this concept has evolved and gained prominence as a method of integrating ethics into the basic purposes and strategic objectives of the firm, the authors argue that stakeholder theory has retained certain “masculinist” assumptions from the wider business literature that limit its usefulness. The resources of feminist thought, specifically the work of Carol Gilligan, provide a means of reinterpreting the stakeholder concept in a way that overcomes many of the existing limitations. This reading provides a different understanding of the identity and meaning of the firm, specifically in terms of its relationship to stakeholder groups and what it means for a firm to succeed. The alternatives proposed also converge with recent trends in the wider management literature and provide practical guidance for firms which face a myriad of challenges in the increasingly complex and global marketplace.
Originally published in: Business Ethics Quarterly, 4(4), 475–497 © Cambridge University Press, 1994
Reprint by Springer, DOI 10.2307/3857345
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Notes
- 1.
See Richard Rorty’s writings on pragmatism for the best and most detailed version of this approach, particularly his discussion of the ironist in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Rorty maintains that language and metaphors are far more powerful in sha** our sense of “rationality” than any analytic conceptions of “reason” or logic. Indeed, he suggest that it is through new and innovative ways of speaking that we can alter the “logical space of reasons” to include the descriptions and metaphors of oppressed groups in a way that make “sense”—he cites the work of feminist thinkers who were able to sensitize us to problems like marital rape, spousal abuse, abortion rights, and the problems of pornography through stretching the boundaries of language and offering potent new metaphors. For this latter argument, see his essay “Feminism and Pragmatism” in Michigan Quarterly Review 30 (Spring 1991): 231–58.
- 2.
We will not provide evidence or sustained argument about whether stakeholder theory, and this particular formulation of it, is consistent with financial success. Others, including Peters in his collaborative projects on excellence, have made this type of argument. We can also look to particular companies which adopt forms of stakeholder management—either implicitly or explicitly—as an indication that this is a reasonable conclusion [e.g., The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry’s, Coming, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, etc.] For the purpose of this paper, we want to leave open the possibility that stakeholder companies can be financially successful in the traditional sense.
- 3.
In the process of offering a new set of metaphors and an alternative discourse we will create a frame of reference within which the terms business and ethics can constructively interact and reinforce each other. Stakeholder theory gives us a means of reinterpreting traditional business discourse so that ethics can have a viable place. Our feminist reinterpretation takes this project a step further and advances the attempt to make ethics and business more interconnected and pleonasmic.
- 4.
Many have argued that the kinds of discourse we call “feminist” are more prevalent in most women (what Gilligan calls the “care perspective”) while “masculine” discourse is more prominent in men (what Gilligan calls the “justice perspective”).
- 5.
The care orientation makes the human capacity to extend care the touchstone of moral activity. Justice places notions of rights and the capacity to logically reason with abstract moral concepts as the key to moral reflection. Care emphasizes the importance of human interaction and the ability to flourish in a network of relationships. Justice makes the individual primary and focuses on a system of rules and responsibilities that enable people to live together and respect each others’ projects. For a more complete description of the terms care and justice, see Gilligan’s work. While these terms provide an important backdrop for our argument, we will focus on the terms “masculinist” and “feminist” in the paper.
- 6.
See Peter French, “The Corporation as a Moral Person,” American Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1979): 207–15.
- 7.
This view finds a classic articulation in Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. as related in his autobiography. My Years With GM (NY: Doubleday, 1963). While Sloan’s views about the autonomous nature of the corporation are characteristic of his era, they would fit in well with much of the strategy literature in the 1990s.
- 8.
- 9.
Mason and Mitroff as well as O’Toole can be seen as clear descendants of James March and Herbert Simon in terms of their views of the organization. For them, at bottom, the study of the organization revolves around the problem of information processing which, in turn, dictates the need for hierarchical control mechanisms.
- 10.
While we argue that these metaphors are rampant in the literature on business and in our culture and we present evidence to support this claim, we do not maintain that they are universally held or that there are not serious challenges to these views on grounds similar to the arguments we make in this paper.
- 11.
A number of other authors take a similar view from a non-feminist perspective. See Alisdair Maclntyre, Michael Sandel, Stanley Hauerwas, Charles Taylor and others who have been grouped under the broad category of “communitarians.”
- 12.
Astley and Fombrun, like many of the other thinkers we draw from in this paper, are not “care” oriented thinkers. There are important affinities between their work and the account we are offering of stakeholder theory, but Tom Peters, Jack Welch, the Club of Rome, and other figures we cite are not necessarily “caring” individuals nor do they write from a “care” perspective. However, their insights are valuable and lend support to our view as we construct the larger narrative of the paper.
- 13.
The position we take here on strategy has important affinities with the work of Gilbert—particularly his account of strategy through convention—in his book The Twilight of Corporate Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
- 14.
See also Marilyn Friedman, “The Impracticality of Impartiality,” Journal of Philosophy LXXVI (1989): 645–56.
- 15.
See Ed Freeman’s Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Boston: Pittman, 1984) for a discussion for a model of negotiation among stakeholders that is similar to what we advocate here, particularly his level three negotiation.
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Wicks, A.C., Gilbert, D.R., Freeman, R.E. (2023). A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Stakeholder Concept. In: Dmytriyev, S.D., Freeman, R.E. (eds) R. Edward Freeman’s Selected Works on Stakeholder Theory and Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics(), vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04564-6_6
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