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The Firm as a “Community of Persons”: A Pillar of Humanistic Business Ethos

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Abstract

The article starts by arguing that seeing the firm as a mere nexus of contracts or as an abstract entity where different stakeholder interests concur is insufficient for a “humanistic business ethos”, which entails a complete view of the human being. It seems more appropriate to understand the firm as a human community, a concept which can be found in several sources, including managerial literature, business ethics scholars, and Catholic Social Teaching. In addition, there are also philosophical grounds that support the idea of business as a human community. Extending this concept, and drawing from some Phenomenological-Personalist philosophers, we propose that the firm should be seen as a particular “community of persons” oriented to providing goods and services efficiently and profitably. Being a “community of persons” emphasizes both individuals and the whole, and makes explicit the uniqueness, conscience, free will, dignity, and openness to human flourishing. This requires appropriate communication about and participation in matters which affect people’s life, and makes it essential to cooperate for the common good of the business firm and the society.

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Notes

  1. “Ethos” in Online Etymology Dictionary: www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ethos&searchmode=none.

  2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethos.

  3. See also Coase (1991a, b), where he explains the meaning and influence of this seminal article.

  4. This is made explicit in Evan and Freeman (1988, p. 151) and Freeman (1997, p. 71).

  5. Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=community, Accessed June 29, 2010.

  6. More than 50 years ago, Hillery (1955, p. 111) found 94 discrete definitions of the term ‘community’.

  7. Similarly, this approach can be applied to the practice of networking (Melé, 2010). As Finnis (1980) noted, these three kinds of relationship can already be found in Aristotle’s treatise on friendship, elaborated after a careful observation of reality in Nicomachean Ethics, chap. VIII.

  8. Explained in a very simple way, the phenomenological method introduced by Edmund Husserl focuses purely on phenomena and on describing them. It consists of recognizing the presence of an object and elucidating its meaning through intuition.

  9. He enriched the philosophical anthropology learned from Aquinas with insights taken from the phenomenology of the philosopher Max Scheller.

  10. “Person” in Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=persona&searchmode=none. Accessed on January 18, 2011.

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  1. IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Domènec Melé

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Melé, D. The Firm as a “Community of Persons”: A Pillar of Humanistic Business Ethos . J Bus Ethics 106, 89–101 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1051-2

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