Voiculescu, Aurora 2017. Business Responsibility for Human Rights Violations from a Theoretical Perspective: Towards a Moral Division of Labour. in: Rendtorff, J.D. (ed.) Perspectives on Philosophy of Management and Business Ethics: Including a Special Section on Business and Human Rights Cham, Switzerland Springer. pp. 227-246
| Chapter title | Business Responsibility for Human Rights Violations from a Theoretical Perspective: Towards a Moral Division of Labour |
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| Authors | Voiculescu, Aurora |
| Editors | Rendtorff, J.D. |
| Abstract | The international community has put forward principles of corporate conduct that call for a scrutiny of the underlying concepts. The business and human rights (BHR) and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) normative discourses set out principles and standards that appear built on loose premises and foggy concepts. This paper advances a number of essential reflections related to the weak or underacknowledged theoretical and sociological foundations upon which the BHR and the CSR discourses have ultimately been built. An account of the theoretical underpinnings of the encounter between the human rights normative discourse and the business one is imperative if we are to shed some light on a realm that is full of conceptual pitfalls. The paper looks, from a variety of conceptual perspectives, into the rationale of organizational responsibility and into the way in which this may connect to the human rights normative discourse. Building upon the deconstruction and analysis of the foundation of social agenthood, the paper looks into the way different theories have acknowledged collective social agency and into the impact each of these theories could have on the proposed nexus between business and human rights. The aim of the analysis is to identify key theoretical perspectives from which the connection between organisational agency and organisational responsibility can acquire some consistency and solidity that can then be lent to the BHR discourse. |
| Keywords | business and human rights; corporate social responsibility; organisational responsibility; collective responsibility; organisational agency; |
| Book title | Perspectives on Philosophy of Management and Business Ethics: Including a Special Section on Business and Human Rights |
| Page range | 227-246 |
| Year | 2017 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 06 Jan 2017 |
| Place of publication | Cham, Switzerland |
| ISBN | 9783319469720 |
| ISSN | 2211-2723 |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46973-7_14 |