Corporations and justice: a theory of corporate justice responsibility

Thesis

Political theorists have developed theories of responsibility for injustice, but rarely identify the corporation as a responsibility-bearer. Management scholars, on the other hand, widely acknowledge that corporations bear extra-commercial responsibilities but rarely include responsibility for justice, casting corporate social responsibility as discretionary duties of benevolence, mostly in service of corporate interests. These two literatures expose a gap in corporations’ responsibility for injustice.

This thesis addresses this responsibility gap by bringing these two literatures into conversation. It argues that the responsibility gap derives in part from the gap, found in both literatures, in the conception of corporate injustice, which in turn derives from a misconception of corporate behaviour.

The thesis argues that corporations are mistakenly conceived as atomistic actors when, in reality, they operate in networks consisting of complex webs of corporate interactions. Upon setting right this misconception, the thesis identifies an overlooked mode of injustice, that of networked injustice that corporations routinely commit by their participation in corporate networks. With this conception of networked injustice, the thesis develops a non-discretionary account of corporate responsibility for injustice, termed corporate justice responsibility.

The thesis contributes to political theory by bringing the corporation firmly into the set of responsibility-bearers for injustice while also identifying networks as mediators of injustice. While networked injustice is developed in the context of corporate behaviour, the concept is applicable to any agents engaged in networked action. The thesis contributes to management and political theory by presenting corporations as fundamentally networked actors, and developing an account of non-discretionary, extra-commercial responsibility borne by corporations, grounded in their contributions to networked injustice.

By these theoretical contributions, the thesis, and the theory of corporate justice responsibility, contribute to closing the gap in accounting for corporations’ justice responsibilities.

Authors: Williams, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-r1znebagx
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: corporate justice debt; harmonisation of corporate behaviours; justice; corporation; just-profit; structural injustice; responsibility; networked injustice
• Subjects: Political science--Philosophy; Social responsibility of business; Ethics; Business ethics