Gray, Owen and Adams viewpoints of social responsibility

Pristine Capitalists

At the extreme stockholder-end is the Pristine Capitalists position. The value underpinning this position is shareholder wealth maximization, and implicit within it is the view that anything that reduces potential shareholder wealth is effectively theft from shareholders.

Expedients

Economic system do generate some excesses, therefore businesses have to accept some (limited) social legislation and moral requirements if such behaviour is in the business’s economic interests.

Social Contractarians

Organizations should behave in a way broadly in conformance with the ethical norms in society because there is effectively a contract or agreement between the organizations in power and those who are affected by the exercise of this power. A business effectively enjoys a licence to operate, however this licence will only continue to be granted by society if the business’s actions deserve it. A business may therefore have to deliver benefits (or avoid causing harm) to society in general. It may also be responsible for delivering benefits to the specific groups from whom it derives its power (such as consumers or employees).

Social Ecologists

Social ecologists go a stage further than the social contractarians in recognizing that (regardless of the views of society), business has a social and environmental footprint and therefore bear some responsibilities in minimizing the footprint it creates. 

Socialists

Socialists are those who see the actions of business as those of a capitalist class, subjugating, manipulations and even oppressing other classes of people. Business is a concentrator of wealth in society (not a redistributors) and so the task of business, social and environment responsibility is very large – much more so than merely adopting token policies (as socialists would see them), that still maintain the supremacy of the capitalist classes. 

Radical feminists 

Economic and social systems privilege masculine qualities such as aggression, conflict and competition over feminine values such as cooperation and reflection, developing corporate social responsibility in the existing masculine framework won’t work. A fundamental re-adjustment is required in the culture and structure of society with potentially far-reaching implications for accountability relationships. Society needs to emphasise qualities traditionally seen as feminine, such as equality, dialogue, compassion and fairness

Deep ecologists

Human beings have no greater rights to resources or life than other species and do not have the rights to subjugate social and environmental systems. Economic systems that trade off threats to the existence of species against economic objectives are immoral. Arguably businesses cannot be trusted to maintain something as important as the environment. Existing economic systems are beyond repair as they are based on the wrong values, privileging humans over non-humans. A full recognition of all stakeholders would mean business had to be conducted in a completely different way. This viewpoint is connected with ides on sustainability.