Discernment Applied to the Corporation

 

There can be anti-racist, feminist, ecological, class, and other types of discernment vis-a-vis the corporation. If discernment involves identifying and correcting the distortions and injustices, then in the discernment process in relation to the corporation, anti-racist, ecological, feminist lenses—to name a few—are used to critique the following key issues with corporations:

  • Corporations (and most firms) only serve their stockholders' interests, their owners try to increase the stockholder or shareholder value.
  • A firm or corporation's actions affect not only stockholders but stakeholders (such as workers and their families, consumers, nature, suppliers, local and national government). Firms' actions can violate or respect these stakeholders' rights.

Stakeholder Theory:
The interests of stakeholders should also be taken into account by the corporation. The corporation should seek to improve the well-being of all its stakeholders, not just its stockholders. And in weighing different stakeholders' interests, firms should not give primacy to one stakeholder group over another. While there will be times when one group will benefit at the expense of others, firms and managers should keep the relationships among stakeholders balanced. It is when these relationships become imbalanced, that the firm's actions can become detrimental to society.

Diagram
As a more normative theory, the stakeholder theory thus suggests how corporations should be governed and how managers should act.
(R. Edward Freeman, A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation)

Discernment: Globalization & Corporations
This is a chart created by our Politcal Economy of Race, Class, and Gender course. In today's globalized world, the effects of irresponsible actions by corporations are felt not only in the home country but the entire globe. Stakeholders are varied and widespread. Below is a critical examination of corporations' effects on their stakeholders. The chart below presents and compares antiracist, feminist, anti-class, and ecological discernment vis-a-vis the corporation.

Chart

 

Links:

  • Corpwatch - Organization that works to foster global justice, independent media activism and democratic control over corporations.
  • Corporate Accountability International - Since 1977, Corporate Accountability International (formerly Infact) has waged and won campaigns that challenge irresponsible actions of corporations , they have compelled dramatic changes in corporate conduct.
  • POCLAD - POCLAD believes that only living persons have inalienable human rights protected by this country's constitution. Through a range of campaigns and tactics, POCLAD is fighting to make it illegal for corporations to use corporate personhood to overturn any democratically enacted laws.
  • Crocodyl - Crocodyl is a collaboration sponsored by CorpWatch, the Center for Corporate Policy and the Corporate Research Project. Their aim is to stimulate collaborative research among NGOs, journalists, activists, whistleblowers and academics to develop publicly-available profiles of the world's most powerful corporations.
  • Corp-research - Non-profit center that assists community, environmental and labor organizations in researching and analyzing companies and industries. The Project is designed to be a resource to aid activism. Consequently, our focus is on strategic research, i.e., identifying the information activists can use as leverage to get business to behave in a socially responsible manner
  • Corporate Policy - Non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization working to curb corporate abuses and make corporations publicly accountable

Created by Andrea Chu and Aileen Hagerman; Date modified: April 3, 2009; Econ 243