Business & Society

This study tests an integrative model of corporate political action, the filter model, based on the behavioral theory of the firm. The filter model posits that external political, economic, and industry environments are mediated by organizational structures and resources to affect a firm’s political actions. The authors rate the filter model’s predictive power against that of an economic-based direct-effects model by examining the efforts of about 1,100 U.S.-domiciled manufacturing firms to influence trade policy. LISREL analysis demonstrates that the integrative filter model provides a superior explanation of corporate political action.

Prior studies have advanced our knowledge of the individual determinants of corporate philanthropy; however, little empirical research has been conducted on how these determinants combine to influence giving. In this study, the authors develop and test an integrated model of the relationship between firm resources and corporate philanthropy as mediated by managerial discretion and managerial values. In addition, the authors offer organizational slack as an alternative measure of organizational resources. As predicted, the results show that firm resources have a positive effect on corporate philanthropy. This effect is fully mediated by managerial discretion and partially mediated by managerial values.

This study examines the effect of gender, Machiavellian orientation, and socially desirable reporting on the respondent’s orientation toward corporate social responsibility. A sample of 219 undergraduate students from a Midwestern university exhibited differences in orientation across gender and degree of Machiavellian orientation. Social desirability had a minimal effect on the responses.

This article briefly characterizes the core values of business as manifestations of natural processes. They include the values of economizing, power-aggrandizing, ecologizing, technologizing, and X-factor, with each separate value cluster a response to identifiable forces of nature. The inconsistencies and contradictions between these various value systems are reconciled by resorting to two kinds of normative phenomena: the rationality and creativity found within the techno-symbolic value cluster, and a global culture of ethics.

Although maintaining that Frederick’s book Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation(1995) provides a new way to think about what often appear to be competing values of business and society generally, this article raises several questions about Frederick’s theory. In particular, the author challenges Frederick’s failure to develop a clear priority system between the value clusters he defines and the utilitarian approach he uses to balance interests. The article is critical of his apparent disagreement with a concept of universal values as well as his related support of cultural relativism.

In response to Frederick’s exhortation to thoroughly examine the interaction of natural and cultural values, this article considers the mother-child paradigm proposed by Virginia Held and its potential for application to business ethics. The application of the model is done in two parts: the recognition of the centrality of the mothering person and child to our social well-being, and an application of the lessons learned from parenting to our civic roles and work environments.

Bill Frederick’s work calls on business ethicists to consider religion as well as nature. Because there are naturally wired religious impulses in human beings and because of the fairness of including normative approaches meaningful for business people, Frederick suggests that the “R” in CSR4 should represent religion. This article takes up the theme in terms of the emerging field of naturalist theology, particularly (although embryonically) as stated by theologian Paul Tillich. Doing so creates (a) connections between “God as Life” and nature and (b) linkages of the notions of symbol, culture, and transcendence. In addition to avoiding the socalled “naturalistic fallacy,” this integration can foster ethical business behavior.

This article argues that the normative issues that arise (a) from business operations in other cultures, (b) from the normative outcomes of early value inculcation by parents, and (c) from a quest for transcendent meaning within the workplace can be understood best when seen within a naturalist framework. Cultural relativist, feminist morality, and theological views can only be enriched, not diminished, by tracing their kinship with nature.