Antonio Argandoña

Private-to-Private Corruption

The cases of corruption reported by the media tend almost always to involve a private party (a citizen or a corporation) that pays, or promises to pay, money to a public party (a politician or a public official, for example) in order to obtain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage. Because of the harm it does to economic efficiency and growth, and because of its social, political and ethical consequences, private-to-public corruption has been widely studied. Private-to-private corruption, by contrast, has been relatively neglected and only recently has started to receive the attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to offer some thoughts on the nature and importance of private-to-private corruption; the legal treatment it receives in some of the worlds leading countries; and the measures that companies can take to combat it, with special consideration of its ethical aspects.

Responsible Corporate Governance: Towards a Stakeholder Board of Directors?

The central question posed in this paper will be how to organize board composition in order to ensure responsible corporate governance both from a CSR and a good governance perspective. Adopting a stakeholder approach to corporate governance, we analyze the arguments given by different theoretical approaches for linking specific board composition with financial performance and CSR, and discuss the empirical research conducted. Despite the inconclusive findings of empirical research, it can be argued that diverse stakeholders on the board will promote CSR activities of the firm, but at the same time will increase board capital (which ultimately may lead to a better financial performance). Finally, we propose a model for selecting board members based both on ethical and pragmatic arguments.

Sharing Out in Alliances: Trust and Ethics

Alliances are relatively new forms of relationships between businesses which allow cooperation in some areas of activity while maintaining competition in others, even in those areas where cooperation is the established procedure. Logically, this demands a mutual trust on the basis of which the cooperation can be established. The nature of this relationship is, furthermore, dynamic inasmuch as it develops over a period of time and generates new conditions which either enhance or destroy trust.This article reviews the general issues of alliances and, in particular, the special relationships between the parties. The discussion of the creation and development of trust in an alliance describes both what technical, psychological, sociological and, particularly, ethical conditions make an alliance possible and the ethical nature of the necessary step which must be taken as trust is transformed from mere possibility into the actual fact of placing trust in a partner.

Anthropological and Ethical Foundations of Organization Theory

The ever more frequent and forceful criticisms of management sciences suggest that we need a new model. In fact, the number of proposed alternatives has multiplied, with some suggesting that the range of economic points of departure be extended, while others turn to other sciences (sociology, psychology, neuroeconomics, political sciences, philosophy) for their inspiration. This article suggests returning to the origins of economic science, action theory, with a broader approach that takes in the contributions of realist philosophy (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas), with a view to laying the foundations for a richer organizational theory in which ethics plays a clearer role.

Can Corporate Social Responsibility Help Us Understand the Credit Crisis

The financial crisis which started in the United States in 2007 and which has spread throughout the world has many causes, one of which is the abundance of unethical behavior on the part of many of those who made the financial decisions, such as regulators, supervisors, managers and employees, and also on the part of a not insignificant number of their customers. In this paper, we will seek to shed light on the crisiss ethical content and show how the generalized practice of corporate social responsibility within financial institutions could have helped reduce the magnitude of the crisis, perhaps not systemically but definitely in some of the organizations that have been most affected by the crisis. For this to happen, however, a particular concept of social responsibility would have to have been applied, a responsibility with an ethical basis - or, more specifically, a voluntarily assumed ethics that was capable of giving rise to self-generated duties among financial decision-makers.

Consistency in Decision Making in Companies

The concept of consistency, applied to organizations, provides the common thread for a model of decision making that considerably enriches the models traditionally used in organization theory by adding a humanistic and ethical dimension. Extending the theory of human motivation to encompass a variety of motives, we state three conditions for long-term organizational well-being: effectiveness, efficiency and consistency. These three conditions are not independent of one another, nor can they be reduced to one another. Consistency plays a key role as a driver of trust in organizations and is a means of introducing ethics into management theory and practice.

The Treatment of Ethical Problems in Financial Institutions and Markets

Ethics is in vogue in the world of business, probably because there is an alarming lack of ethics in the business world — although probably no more than there is in personal, family, political or social life.

From Action Theory to the Theory of the Firm

Since Coases (1937) pioneering article, the theory of the firm, especially in its neoclassical form, has developed tremendously. The criticisms leveled against it confirm its interest and usefulness - which is not to say that it cannot be improved upon or corrected in many respects. This chapter is intended to contribute to a broadening of the theory of the firm, starting from a theory of human action that encompasses a wide range of motivations. It also suggests specific ways in which the conception of the firm can be improved.

Political Party Funding and Business Corruption

The funding of political parties raises interesting economic, political, social and ethical problems. This paper seeks to address these problems with the intention of contributing to the general debate, but, above all, of understanding the issue from the companys viewpoint, since companies are directly implicated in political party finance, as donors, as supposed beneficiaries of political activity, or as the sufferers of the consequences of illegal party funding. The analysis is focused in economic, political and, above all, ethical terms, first on a general level and then from the companys viewpoint.

Ethical Management Systems for Not-for-profit Organizations

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have proven to be excellent instruments for promoting a wide range of causes. But they need to adhere to strict ethical principles, that they usually embody in voluntary codes and standards. This paper analyzes one standard, the “Ethics. NGO management system” standard, published by Aenor, a private Spanish organization committed to the development of standardization and certification. The analysis and comments are centered mainly on issues of accountability of NGOs.