Abstract
This paper explores the implications of a political conception of corporate social responsibility for corporate governance. More specifically it discusses the implications of the theory of deliberative democracy of Jürgen Habermas for models of stakeholder democracy. Since there are several varieties of capitalism the paper relates the room for stakeholder influence and co-determination to the degree of freedom of economic actors within varieties of capitalism. Although the debate about a possible convergence to the shareholder model is still undecided, it is argued that there are good reasons to believe that the extent and institutionalization of stakeholder democracy within a capitalist economy is largely dependent on the institutional history or path taken within a national business system and the adaptive strategies of economic actors themselves. Finally, the paper describes the implications of four principles of stakeholder democracy for corporate governance, given the varieties of capitalism. Besides the national level, some of the implications of deliberative democracy and the related concept of human rights are explored for the international business system.
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Notes
- 1.
The global economic crisis has led to a revaluation of the stakeholder model of capitalism, at least among many European politicians. In the current political climate, it is hard to imagine political support for any further convergence to one form of super-capitalism. The shareholder model has lost some of its attractiveness. This is especially the case since the focus on the maximization of shareholder value has been identified as one of the main causes behind the risk seeking attitude of professionals in finance. However, the arguments developed in this paper do not depend on the assumption that such a convergence is actually advancing. We assume that in many cases the national business system is a hybrid of several elements of the two basic models of shareholder and stakeholder capitalism. Maybe the financial crisis will induce new legislation which will hamper the fixation on shareholder value, but this does not mean that the previous liberalization of the financial markets will be undone. So, the world dominance of one supermodel of capitalism is as unlikely as before.
- 2.
Many proponents of the liberal model of democracy actually do not neglect the influence of discourse and of a shared culture on self-governance. Nevertheless, the liberal model has been criticized for adopting an “atomistic view” on the individual (cf. Taylor 1979).
- 3.
See also Vogel (2005, pp. 169–173).
- 4.
For a more extensive criticism of stakeholder theory as a normative theory of business ethics see Hendry (2001).
- 5.
This definition is taken from Suchman (1995).
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van de Ven, B., Dubbink, W. (2011). Deliberative Democracy and Corporate Governance. In: Brink, A. (eds) Corporate Governance and Business Ethics. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy, vol 39. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1588-2_9
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