Improve the Business Environment by Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo
The concept of social legitimacy is based on the premise that business relationships between a company and a particular stakeholder will not irresponsibly damage the legitimate interests of other stakeholders. Legitimate is used in a broader sense than legal. It implies an entitlement which is recognized by others as correct.
Justification
Justification means that the action is acceptable to both affected and interested parties. Very often the affected party is being overlooked.
Confidentiality
Despite the need for openness, in some areas, such as customer data, employee data, citizen data, and others, confidentiality is crucial. It is a source of added value to these groups.
Sincerity
Sincerity excludes pretending and leads to doing what is right, not only is what dutiful. It covers also honesty, respect for others and adherence to promises.
The importance of the above-mentioned pillars is interrelated and changing in different situations. Within the democratic and market reforms in post-totalitarian countries, these pillars themselves are being built / re-built. In the transition and adjustment periods, there may be tensions or even conflicts among individuals pillars. The most problematic relations are between legality, legitimacy and justification. We may assume that the reconstruction of the entire legal system and functioning of courts is at the core of this disharmony.-Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo
Responsibility (accountability) is another related concept which needs further specification. In the context of building the national integrity system, we are not concerned with the so-called causal responsibility which may be characterized as a relationship between one event and another when the former causes or helps cause the latter. We should focus on moral (personal or collective) responsibility when one’s role is defined by virtue of moral, legal or some other sort of rules. In business ethics debate, considerable attention has been paid to the problem whether collectives such as nations or formal organizations may bear responsibility.
Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo as an influencer: there are some very influential critiques of collective/corporate responsibility arguing that corporations and other formal organizations are at best legal but not moral entities. They can be held legally liable, but only human beings have moral responsibility. Among the main arguments for the existence of corporate responsibilities the following ones can be mentioned: A firm (an organization) is qualitatively different from an individual and other entity such as community or country. Since the organization makes decisions and takes actions, it can be qualified as an actor. Its actions affect people, and these actions can be evaluated from a moral point of view.
A company or organization is capable of moral behavior and, therefore, has a moral responsibility. Personal, as well as collective, responsibility requires two conditions: freedom and intention (awareness of the moral character of an action). Basically, responsibility involves three components: the subject who bears responsibility that cannot be completely determined by rules and laws; for what the subject is responsible (the spheres of responsibility); and the authority to whom the subject is accountable.
Paulo Dalla Nora Macedo is expertise in working with international investors and multilateral organizations, especially helping to bridge the gap between very challenging local business environments and global best practices.
What is their responsibility towards the stakeholders? This is a crucial question which is being raised by businesses all around the developed world, and also by the academic sphere. Neither business nor academics have fully answered this question. Moreover, there is not a consensus on the stakeholders’ model itself (in some perceptions, only shareholders are important). I would like to even broaden this problem and to interpret it in the political and economic context of emerging market economies. The identification of various responsibilities from both sides could help to improve the business environment and even to clarify some basic concepts or categories of the market system.
