Sticky Ethics, Innovation, and Corporate Responsibility

摘要

"To assume that any given effort to 'do good' will meet with applause would be naive." Why this is so, and why the development and execution of organizational ethics and corporate responsibility is so complex is examined in this article. The discussion, which draws many research threads together, leans on an integrative model involving values as function, structure, interaction, and cognition. These value sets interact and, in turn, may evolve from individual ideas into institutionalized ethical norms. At the same time, the evolution of corporate (or organizational) responsibility is influenced by already existing "norms." Innovative, entrepreneurial organizations may be less influenced by existing value systems and more by those of key individuals, and the organization itself is typically influx. On the other hand, large, established organizations with substantial resources may have greater ability to buck sticky values and norms if they so wish.