The DOI matches its Crossref record; 61 of the 63 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Discourse Ethics and Social Accountability: The Ethics of SA 8000
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Based on theoretical insights of discourse ethics as developed by Jürgen Habermas, we delineate a proposal to further develop the institutionalization of social accounting in multinational corporations (MNCs) by means of “Social Accountability 8000” (SA 8000). First, we discuss the cornerstones of Habermas's discourse ethics and elucidate how and why this concept can provide a theoretical justification of the moral point of view in MNCs. Second, the basic conception, main purpose, and implementation procedure of SA 8000 are presented. Third, we critically examine SA 8000 from a Habermasian perspective, and discuss advantages and drawbacks of the initiative. Fourth, to address the drawbacks, we introduce a “discourse-ethically” extended version of SA 8000. We show that this approach is theoretically well-founded and able to overcome some of the current deficits of the certification initiative. We demonstrate that the extended version of SA 8000 can be successfully applied on a cross-cultural basis, and that our findings have significant implications for other international ethics initiatives.
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“the need to implement long-term systemic perspectives is accentuated in most literatures on CSR and sustainability (e.g., Gilbert & Rasche, 2007;Gladwin, Kennelly, & Krause, 1995;Slawinski & Bansal, 2018; see also Winkler, Etter, & Castelló, 2019).”
From Timely hypocrisy? Hypocrisy temporalities in CSR communication (2020) · cites this paper as Gilbert & Rasche, 2007
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Metadata
- Authors
- Gilbert, D. U., & Rasche, A.
- Affiliations
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- Copenhagen Business School (DK)
- Venue
- Business Ethics Quarterly
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2007-04
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 187-216
- ISSN
- 1052-150X (ISSN-L)
- 2153-3326
- OpenAlex
- W2119456955
- Cited by
- 270
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 23
- FWCI
- 33.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- papers.ssrn.com
- Locations
- Business Ethics Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Ethics in Business and Education
- Keywords
- discourse ethics, Jürgen Habermas, SA8000, social accountability, multinational corporations, corporate social responsibility, certification standards, moral perspective, cross-cultural application
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