When Public and Business Interests Collide: An Integrated Approach to the Altruism-Instrumentalism Tension and Corporate Social Responsibility Theory

ABSTRACT

This article attends to the debate of what motivations – instrumental or altruistic – should drive corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions and practice; I offer an integrated instrumental and duty-based framework. While the win-win instrumentalism that underlies much of CSR practice is problematic and needs addressing, the notion of altruism is also flawed. Such an application of deontological principles, while well-intentioned, is a) based on a misreading of Kant’s humanity formula, b) does not lend itself to the inherent duality of the CSR concept, and c) constrains the quest and need to mainstream ethical CSR. Instead, I propose that a more pertinent question is how to address firms’ tendency to choose those societal issues that yield private benefits. In this regard, drawing on W.D. Ross’ moral philosophy, I provide a three-level decision criterion for addressing situations where firms’ private interests and social aspirations collide.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Corporate constitutionalism is Davis’ idea that stakeholders restrict organizational power in the same way that a national constitution does. The view that businesses are endowed with enormous power and should, therefore, exercise it responsibly, lest it comes back to hurt them, underlies all of Davis’ three concepts: corporate constitutionalism, social power equation, and the iron law of responsibility.

² Occurring “when an entity other than the recipient rewards a benevolent actor” (Marsh, 2018, p. 463).