Author's Acknowledgement: This article is dedicated with great affection to my Berkeley Business School collegue, Professor Dow Votaw, who for more than two decades has been my professional mentor and, more importantly, my close friend. An earlier version of the manuscript was presented as my “Chairman's Address,” at the Social Issues in Management Divison Session, Academy of Management Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, August 14, 1984. My research was facilitated greatly by assistance from the Program in Business and Social Policy, Center for Research in Management, Berkeley Business School, University of California, Berkeley, which funded the exceptionally able assistance of Ms. Martha L. Reiner, a doctoral student at U.C., Berkeley, in the Business and Public Policy Program.
2.
HamiltonJoan O'C., “Levi Strauss Wants to be a Family Affair Again,”Business Week, July 29, 1985, pp. 28–29; BellewPatricia A., “Levi Strauss Board Studies Buyout Offer,”The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 1985, p. 16.
3.
LacterMark, “Levi's Buyout—It's Official,”San Francisco Chronicle, July 16, 1985, p. 51.
4.
BellewPatricia A., “Levi Strauss & Co.'s Chief May Propose $1 Billion Bid to Take Concern Private,”The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 1985, p. 6.
5.
McCueLise J., “Loans to South Africa Opposed: Groups Rap Banks in Hearings on House Bill,”American Banker, June 9, 1983, p. 3; “Businessmen Raise Their Voice,”The Economist, September 10, 1983, p. 75.
6.
BrodeurPaul, Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry On Trial (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985); MintzMorton, At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985); AlexanderCurtis, “Robins Runs for Shelter: The Drugmaker Files for Bankruptcy to Cope with the Dalkon Shield Disaster,”Time, September 2, 1985, p. 32; FiermanJacyln, “Safe in Chapter 11,”Fortune, March 5, 1984, p. 143; GreerEdward, “Going ‘Bankrupt’ to Flee the Public,”The Nation, October 16, 1982, p. 360; GlabersonWilliam B., “The Bankruptcy Laws May Be Stretching Too Far,”Business Week, May 9, 1983.
7.
See, for example, HazleMaline, “3 Tainted Wells Found in South San Jose,”San Jose Mercury News, April 3, 1984, p. 18.
8.
“Plant-Closing Bills: Labor Takes a Beating,”Business Week, August 20, 1984, p. 40; WendlingWayne R., “The Plant Closure Policy Dilemma: Labor, Law and Bargaining,”The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 480 (July 1985): 203.
9.
MehtaVed, “Letter from New Delhi,”The New Yorker, September 2, 1985, pp. 51, 67–70.
10.
CifelliAnna, “Defense Contractors Circle their Wagons (Defense Fraud Causes Budget Battle),”Fortune, April 29, 1985, p. 237; GoodwinJacob, “Brotherhood of Arms: General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America,”New Republic, August 12, 1985, p. 33.
11.
“Stealing $200 Billion ‘The Respectable Way,”’U.S. News and World Report, May 20, 1985, p. 83; “Top Hutton Aide Urged Overdrafts in Company Note,”The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 1985, p. 4.
12.
“Job Safety Becomes a Murder Issue,”Business Week, August 6, 1984, p. 23.
13.
FlaxSteven, “How to Snoop on Your Competitors,”Fortune, May 14, 1984, pp. 28–33.
See, for example, CochranThomas C., Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 15, 23; McCrawThomas K., “Business and Government: The Origins of the Adversary Relationship,”California Management Review, 26/2 (Winter 1984): 33–52.
16.
LipsetSeymour MartinSchneiderWilliam, The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1983); BergerPeter L., “New Attack on the Legitimacy of Business,”Harvard Business Review, 59/5 (September/October 1981): 82–89.
17.
BardachEugeneKaganRobert A., “Conclusion: Responsibility and Accountability,” in BardachKagan, eds., Social Regulation: Strategies for Reform (San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1982), pp. 342–344; WeidenbaumMurray L., Business, Government, and the Public, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981), p. 11.
18.
LeysWayne A.R., “Ethics and the Rule of Law,”The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 343 (September 1962): 32–38; MillsteinIra M.KatshSalem M., The Limits of Corporate Power: Existing Constraints on the Exercise of Corporate Discretion (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 229–255; StoneChristopher D., Where the Law Ends (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 113; DonaldsonThomas, Corporations and Morality (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), p. 2; SelekmanBenjamin Morris, A Moral Philosophy for Management (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1959), pp. 165–217; ElbingAlvar O.Jr.ElbingCarol J., The Value Issue of Business (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967), p. 45. BardachKagan, in Social Regulation, op. cit., p. 350, similarly indicate that responsibility, not simply accountability, is necessary because hazards not dealt with by existing regulations continually appear.
19.
See, for example, ElbingElbing, The Value Issue of Business, op. cit., pp. 6, 44, 83–84, 93–94, 117; GarrettThomas M., Business Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 76, 138, 141, 159; BaumhartRaymond, Ethics in Business (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), pp. 1, 75, 103; WaltonClarence C., Corporate Social Responsibilities (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1967), pp. 7–8, 114, 156; CheitEarl F., “The New Place of Business: Why Managers Cultivate Social Responsibility,” in CheitEarl F., ed., The Business Establishment (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), p. 161.
20.
See, for example, WaysMax, “A Plea for Perspective,” in WaltonClarence C., ed., The Ethics of Corporate Conduct (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977), pp. 115–116; WaltonClarence, “The Executive Ethic: View from the Top,” in Walton, ed., The Ethics of Corporate Conduct, pp. 180–187, 192–194; MaddenCarl, “Forces Which Influence Ethical Behavior,” in Walton, ed., The Ethics of Corporate Conduct, pp. 50–55; DonaldsonThomasWerhanePatricia H., eds., Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983), pp. 3–4; AndersonRobert M.PurrucciRobertSchendelDan E.TrachtmanLeon E., Divided Loyalties: Whistle-Blowing at BART (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1980); DeGeorgeRichard T., Business Ethics (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 105, 147, 167, 203, 243; VelasquezManuel G., Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), pp. 174, 265, 279, 306, 309, 319; JacobyNeil H.NehemkisPeterEellsRichard, Bribery Extortion in World Business: A Study of Corporate Political Payments Abroad (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1977).
21.
BrownHoward R., Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1953); WaltonClarence, ed., The Ethics of Corporate Conduct, op. cit., p. 6. Similarly, the same issues are treated within the issues management framework of analysis. See, for example, BuchholzRogene A.EvansWilliam D.WagleyRobert A., Management Response to Public Issues: Concepts and Cases in Strategy Formulation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985).
22.
DeGeorge, Business Ethics, op. cit., p. 36; EvansWilliam A., Management Ethics: An Interculture Perspective (Boston, MA: Martinus Nijkoff Publishers, 1981).
23.
See, for example, Stone, Where the Law Ends, op. cit., p. 112.
24.
DeGeorge, Business Ethics, op. cit., p. 35.
25.
In The Value Issue of Business, op. cit., Elbing and Elbing stress that business organizations are crucial settings in which values are learned. JacobyNeil H., “The Corporation as Social Activist,” in SethiS. Prakash, ed., The Unstable Ground: Corporate Social Policty in a Dynamic Society (Los Angeles, CA: Melville Publishing Company, 1974), p. 230.
26.
See, for example, CavanaghGerald F., American Business Values, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 18–22; ChamberlainNeil W., Remaking American Values: Challenge to a Business Society (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1977); LambKarl A., The Guardians: Leadership Values and the American Tradition (New York, NY: Norton, 1982), pp. 28–65; WardJohn William, “The Ideal of Individualism and the Reality of Organization,” in CheitEarl F., ed., The Business Establishment, op. cit., p. 37; HartzLouis, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Thought since the Revolution (New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1955), pp. 55, 213–214; WyllieIrvin G., The Self-Made Man in America: The Myth of Rags to Riches (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1954); YankelovichDaniel, New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down (New York, NY: Random House, 1981), pp. 176, 201, 221, 231–232, 247; BellahRobert N.MadsenRichardSullivanWilliam M.SwidlerAnnTiptonSteven M., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 23–25, 252–253; BardachKagan, Social Regulation, op. cit., pp. 344–345; VotawDow, “Genius Becomes Rare,” in VotawDowSethiS. Prakash, The Corporate Dilemma: Traditional Values versus Contemporary Problems (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 41–42; HurstJames Willard, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), pp. 6–9; DeGeorge, Business Ethics, op. cit., p. 36.
27.
PrestonLee E.PostJames E., Private Management and Public Policy: The Principle of Public Responsibility (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 11.
28.
WoukHerman, Inside, Outside (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1985), p. 122.
29.
PrestonLee E., “Corporation and Society: The Search for a Paradigm,”Journal of Economic Literature, 13/2 (June 1975): 434–453.
30.
FrommEric, “Afterword,” in OrwellGeorge, 1984 (New York, NY: The New American Library, 1981), p. 257.