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  • 2015
  • Chapter
  • Ethical Innovation in Business and the Economy

Managerial Responsibility and the Purpose of Business: Doing One's Job Well

By: Nien-he Hsieh
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Abstract

Business managers routinely make decisions that significantly affect the lives of others in both positive and negative ways. In the light of these wide-ranging effects, much scholarship has been devoted to specifying the responsibilities of managers of for-profit business enterprises. Much of this scholarship is framed in relation to “shareholder primacy”—the view that managers should maximize shareholder wealth subject to the constraints of market mechanisms. In this chapter, I outline another alternative to shareholder primacy that aims to improve upon existing alternatives and avoid some of the difficulties they encounter. I argue that even though business enterprises are private associations, in overseeing them as loci of production, managers help to realize important market-specific social values. These values in turn ground responsibilities on the part of managers to pursue specific ends. By framing managerial responsibility in terms of the values realized through the functioning of business enterprises, this account of managerial responsibility is also meant to address debates about the role and purpose of business firms.

Keywords

Business or Company Management; Goals and Objectives

Citation

Hsieh, Nien-he. "Managerial Responsibility and the Purpose of Business: Doing One's Job Well." Chap. 5 in Ethical Innovation in Business and the Economy, edited by Georges Enderle and Patrick E. Murphy, 95–118. Studies in Transatlantic Business Ethics. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.
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About The Author

Nien-he Hsieh

General Management
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More from the Author
  • LCA Module Overview: Society By: Nien-he Hsieh
  • LCA Module Overview: Employees By: Nien-hê Hsieh
  • Ethical Analysis: Honesty and Self-Interest By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Christopher Diak
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