Who responds to whom?
Corporate Culture and the question of communicating Responsibility

Ludger Heidbrink, Peter Seele

Working Papers des CRR

Nr. 2/2007 ISSN 2190-5398 www.responsibility-research.de Who responds to whom?
Corporate Culture and the question of communicating Responsibility

Ludger Heidbrink, Peter Seele

Nr. 2/2007 ISSN 2190-5398

2

Who responds to whom?
Corporate Culture and the question of communicating Responsibility
Prof. Dr. Ludger Heidbrink Prof. Dr. Dr. Peter F. Seele CRR (Center for Responsibility Research) Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen Outline There are as many opinions on business and ethics as there are statements. In this paper we present the major positions in this ongoing and increasing debate and categorize them according to their ratio as business or ethics, business and ethics and finally ethics in business. In this paper we also present the view, that ethical issues are not separated but connected from business in terms of making profit. We also argue against a strong normative idea of business ethics claiming social responsibility as objective for corporations. After introducing the most common concepts to manage ethics (Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Citizenship (CC)), we identify Corporate Culture as crucial parameter to combine business and ethics by the notion of responsibility.

Spheres of corporate responsibility: formal and informal institutions The wording in corporate ethics is of major significance and consequence. By the terms used it might become apparent which positions and which ideologies are applied. Whereas NGOs and government institutions speak of CSR or Social Responsibility, corporations prefer to speak of Corporate Responsibility. CSR can be seen as a two sided concept trying to refer to both worlds. The common basis for both worlds – if this