Edwin M. Epstein

Business ethics, Corporate Good Citizenship and the Corporate Social Policy Process: A view from the United States

Within the American context, the term Corporate Good Citizenship, a rather vague and somewhat dated notion, bears little relationship to the concept of Business Ethics. Whereas the latter refers to systematic reflection on the moral significance of the institutions, policies and behavior of business actors in the normal course of their business operations, the former is a subset of the broader notion of Corporate Social Responsibility and denotes, generally, discretionary, possibly altruistic, “non-business” relationships between business organizations and diverse community stakeholders. A newer concept, the Corporate Social Policy Process, which focuses on the institutionalization within business organizations of processes facilitating individual and organizational reflection and choice regarding the moral significance of personal and organizational action together with a consideration of the likely consequences of such action, provides analytical linkages between Business Ethics and Corporate Good Citizenship which can be useful to business scholars and operating managers alike. Specific aspects of Corporate Good Citizenship, including corporate community involvements, are examined and particular attention is paid to current trends in corporate donations, including an increasing emphasis on “strategic philanthropy” which explicitly mixes practical and benevolent motives in company giving policies and practices.

Religion and Business – The Critical Role of Religious Traditions in Management Education

During the past decade many individuals have sought to create a connection between their work persona and their religious/spiritual persona. Management education has a legitimate role to play in introducing teachings drawn from our religious traditions into business ethics and other courses. Thereby, we can help prepare students to consider the possibility that business endeavors, spirituality and religious commitment can be inextricable parts of a coherent life.

Business Ethics and Corporate Social Policy: Reflections on an Intellectual Journey, 1964-1996, and Beyond

This article reviews the development of business ethics and corporate social policy from the perspective of a long-time major in the field.

The Continuing Quest for Accountable, Ethical, and Humane Corporate Capitalism An Enduring Challenge for Social Issues in Management in the New Millennium

From their inception, the social issues in management (SIM) field and the SIM Division within the Academy of Management have provided venues to examine the complex, dynamic, two-way relation between economic institutions of our society and the social systems in which they operate. They have blended the normative with the scientific, the speculative with the empirical, and the philosophical with the pragmatic. The field and the Division have served, perhaps most importantly, as the conscience of management education and the Academy. Their enduring quest and raison d’étre is to foster corporate capitalism that is accountable, ethical, and humane.

How to Learn from the Environment about the Environment — a Prerequisite for Organizational Well-Being

Learning from the environment about the environment informs the organization not only about the organization, but also about itself.

SIM’s Directions: “Back to the Future”

This essay addresses directions for the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division from the perspective of “Back to the Future.” The author was chair of the SIM Division in 1983 to 1984 and the 1989 recipient of the SIM Division’s Sumner Marcus Distinguished Service Award. The essay reviews the general history of SIM during the 1960s and 1970s in which the University of California, Berkeley, played a key role in organizing conferences. The author explains his approach as an applied empiricist to research concerning SIM. The essentials are power, legitimacy, responsibility, rationality, and values, and understanding how they impact the ongoing day-to-day interactions within, between, and among business organizations, their leadership, and other sectors of society. SIM is a field of diverse inquiry which has been the recipient of perspectives and persons drawn not only from multiple disciplines, particularly from the social sciences, law, and management, but also from the humanities and sciences. SIM is patently multi- and inter-disciplinary.

Clarence C. Walton on Management Education: Perspectives and Contributions

I admit unabashedly that Clarence C. Walton has been my intellectual mentor virtually from the day I began my academic career over three decades ago. Together with Dow Votaw, my dear friend and University of California at Berkeley colleague, Clarence, first through his writings and then personally, nurtured my fledgling efforts during the 1960s and beyond in that inchoate, ill-defined, squishy area of inquiry—then barely a field, and surely not a discipline—variously known as Business and Society; Business and the Environment; Business, Government and Society; the Legal, Social, and Political Environment of Business; or Clarence’s preferred designation, Conceptual Foundations of Business. Clarence; Dow; Ray Bauer of Harvard; George Steiner of UCLA; Bill Frederick of Pittsburgh; Earl F. “Budd” Cheit of Berkeley; Keith David of Arizona; Ivar Berg, then also at Columbia; Harold Johnson of Emory; Walter H. Klein, then of Villanova; Joe McGuire, then of Kansas; Sumner Marcus and Joe Monsen of Washington; and George L. “Lee” Bach of Stanford were the doyens and champions of this entrepreneuring intellectual enterprise striving for legitimacy—indeed, survival—in the hostile academic climate of the times.