Is EK a psychopatic corporation or not science has the answer.
From CR-Psychopaths to Responsible
Corporations: Waking up the Inner
Sleeping Beauty of Companies
Tarja Ketola*
Department of Management, TurkuSchool of Economics, Finland
ABSTRACT
Many large companies seem to fulfil the psychiatric criteria for psychopaths in their corporate responsibility (CR) practices. Are they really incurable psychopaths, or is it possible that they could be counselled into accepting their responsibilities?
CR studies have so far paid little attention to the variations in the CR emphases between different companies. This article, based on a conference paper (Ketola, 2005b), presents a CR emphasis model, pinpointing eight different approaches to corporate responsibility. Some companies do not voluntarily take any responsibilities.
Companies acting like psychopaths need a Prince of Virtues to kiss awake their
inner Sleeping Beauty from its 100-year irresponsibility sleep. All companies could take advantage of virtue ethics, which present the values shared by all humans, and hence exemplify the natural law (lex naturae). Counselling top managers and key individuals on their personal and professional values enables all personnel to integrate virtues into the company’s CR practices. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Introduction
IN AN AMERICAN TV DOCUMENTARY, TARGETING THE MAJORS (FINNISH TV2, 2 JANUARY 2005),
major companies were subjected to a personality test by measuring their actions in the areas of economic, social and ecological responsibilities. The actions taken by those companies indicated that they were psychopaths as they fulfilled all the criteria of psychopathy. I have adopted this idea, and compare in Table 1 the personal characteristics of psychopaths with typical contemporary organizational behaviour.
Naturally, the documentary presented the worst deeds done by companies; therefore, the psychopathic characteristics do not represent their whole personality, which also incorporates good deeds. However, a responsible company does not do good deeds with one hand and evil deeds with the other hand, but tries to do good with both hands. Psychopathic characteristics should be eliminated from a company in order that it can really be a responsible company and say so.
The psychopathic characteristics of companies are often established practices developed over the years or decades. They have started from an individual’s or individual company’s evil deed that has remained unpunished, and have consequently spread and become a common practice within a company and among companies, a line of business and the whole business community. New psychopathic corporate characteristics are developing all the time – every time a company gets off scot-free. It is the responsibility of companies themselves, business communities, business environments and society at large to see to that no-one’s irresponsible deeds remain unpunished. Apart from discipline, positive incentives are needed to motivate companies away from psychopathic behaviour. First they need to become aware of their current position in the CR emphasis map, in order that appropriate action can be taken.
A Hypothetical Corporate Responsibility Emphasis Model
Corporate responsibility research has made major advances in mapping the area both in theory and practice
However, CR studies have so far paid little attention to the variations in the CR emphases between different companies. Companies have remarkably varied approaches to responsibility. Even within a single line of business many different attitudes can be found. For example, of the oil companies the Finnish Neste Oil believes that their ‘profit cake’ can be cut between economic, social and ecological responsibilities, while the American ExxonMobil sees responsibility as a zero sum game in which the economic responsibilities
must win (Ketola, 2005a). The British BP and the British–Dutch Shell tend to lobby compromises
between different stakeholders so that the claimants of social and ecological responsibilities would also be satisfied with what they benefit from the oil companies’ profits (Ketola, 2005a; O’Rourke, 2004;
CR-Psychopaths
The corporate responsibility emphases of different companies can be analysed with the assistance of
a hypothetical corporate responsibility model illustrated in Figure 1. The model takes account of all the combinations of corporate economic, social and ecological responsibilities. Thus an individual responsibility profile can be drawn for each company.
Some of these concepts have already been used by other researchers. O’Riordan (1981) made a division between technocentric and ecocentric sustainable development and Pearce (1991), Purser et al.
(1995), Shrivastava (1995) and Iyer (1999) between anthropocentric and ecocentric sustainable development.
However, their anthropocentrism is in fact a rather inhuman, calculative technocentric
approach for the rich and mighty who can afford to solve problems with technological innovations.
Chambers (1987), on the other hand, introduced a genuinely anthropocentric approach, sustainable
livelihoods, in which poor people are paid special attention to. Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) is a
compromise between technocentric, anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches.
Colby (1990) distinguished five categories along the line of anthropo-, eco- and biocentric sustainable
development. As with Pearce, Colby’s anthropocentric alternative is actually technocentric, which makes
his five categories very strong technocentrism, strong technocentrism, modified technocentrism,
ecocentrism and biocentrism – illustrating the society’s firm, even desperate, belief in technological.......
Last edited by EK Shadow; 11th March 2006 at 07:56.