Papers by Richard M Robinson
Journal of Business Ethics, Aug 22, 2017
A nexus of imperfect duty, defined as positive commitments that have practical limits, describes ... more A nexus of imperfect duty, defined as positive commitments that have practical limits, describes business behavior toward building affable and virtuous relations, maintaining reasoned social discourse, and performing the due diligence necessary for making knowledgeable business decisions. A theory of the development and extent of the limits of these imperfect managerial duties is presented here, a theory that in part explains the activities and personnel included under the firm's umbrella. As a result, the nexus of imperfect duty is shown to complement the perfect-duty-based nexus-of-contracts theory of the firm. The existence of flexible trade-offs involving these duties, trade-offs limited by contractual arrangements whether explicit or implicit, is shown to be one of the advantages of imperfect duty for developing business relations.
Journal of Business Ethics, Aug 3, 2016
It is argued here that business firms can and do provide an incubator that enables the Aristoteli... more It is argued here that business firms can and do provide an incubator that enables the Aristotelian category of friendships of advantage to develop into friendships of virtue. This contradicts other literature that views acquaintances of utility as the business norm, and expresses pessimism concerning more advanced virtuous development of friendship within the business firm. It is argued here, however, that this virtuous development is integral to the Kantian social aim of pursuing a moral community, an aim which declares the appropriate moral motivation for business, and that certainly should incorporate a role for developing virtuous relations as a component of that pursuit. An atmosphere that encourages the development of relations of virtue is feasible, exists in real business, and is optimal for pursuit of moral business communities.
Environmental Advocacy and Local Restorations
Environmental Politics and Theory
Due Diligence and the Profit Motive: Perfect or Imperfect Duty?
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
The pursuit of shareholder wealth is not a contractual obligation of management, and therefore no... more The pursuit of shareholder wealth is not a contractual obligation of management, and therefore not a perfect duty. It is an imperfect duty that has practical limits that result from its trade-offs with other imperfect duties of due diligence. These imperfect duties of managerial due diligence are illustrated here through explanations of basic financial decisions: capital budgeting (the selection of long-term projects of the firm), capital structure (the selection of finance sources), and liquidity management. The ethical foundations of these imperfect duties of due diligence are drawn from Rawls’ criteria for “competent moral judges” and “considered moral judgements.” These are shown to depend on the imperfect duties to gather and utilize relevant knowledge as explained in Chapters 2 and 3.
Mangerial Processes for Virtue or Maleficence
The BRC Academy Journal of Business, 2018
Creating a 21st Century Entrepreneurial Organization
Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, 2002
ABSTRACT Consider the situation facing new Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in 2001. The unfortu... more ABSTRACT Consider the situation facing new Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in 2001. The unfortunate reality for her: H-P's lumbering organization was losing touch with its global customers. Her response? As illustrated in Figure 1, Fiorina immediately dismantled the decentralized structure honed throughout HP's 64-year history. Pre-Fiorina, HP was a collection of 83 independently run units, each focused on a product such as scanners or security software. Fiorina collapsed those into four sprawling organizations. One so-called back-end unit develops and builds computers, and another focuses on printers and imaging equipment. The back-end divisions hand products off to two "front-end" sales and marketing groups that peddle the wares--one to consumers, the other to corporations. The theory: The new structure would boost collaboration, giving sales and marketing execs a direct pipeline to engineers so products are developed from the ground up to solve customer problems. This was the first time a company with thousands of product lines and scores of businesses has attempted a front-back approach, a structure that requires laser focus and superb coordination. (1) [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] INTRODUCTION Fiorina believed she had little choice lest the company experience a near-death experience like Xerox or, ten years earlier, IBM. The conundrum: how to make the company entrepreneurial once again and put the full force of the company behind winning in its immediate fiercely competitive technology business when they must also cook up brand-new megamarkets? It's a riddle Fiorina said she could solve only by sweeping structural change that would ready HP for the next stage of the technology revolution, when companies latch on to the Internet to transform their operations. How could the successful HP become a large entrepreneurial version of what it's visionary entrepreneur founders created a half century earlier? At its core lay a conviction that HP must become "ambidextrous," excelling at short-term execution while pursuing long-term visions that create new markets. In addition to changing HP's structure, Fiorina also sought to revamp its culture of creativity. Her plan for unleashing a new culture of creativity was what she called "inventing at the intersection." Until 2001, HP made stand-alone products and innovations from $20 ink cartridges to $3 million servers. To revolutionize HP's culture and approach, she launched three "cross-company iniatives"--wireless services, digital imaging, and commercial printing--the first formal effort to get all of HP's separate and sometimes warring "tribes" working together. (2) Will it work? The jury is still out. Regardless, she earned high marks for zeroing in of HP's core problems and for having the courage to tackle them head-on. And, if it does, the then 46-year old CEO would become a 21st century management hero for a reinvigorated HP becoming a blueprint for others trying to transform major technology companies into 21st century dynamos. Said Stanford professor Robert Burgelman at the time, "there isn't a major technology company in the world that has solved the problem she's trying to address, and we're all going to learn from her experience." (3) What CEO Fiorina faced, and Professor Burgelman recognizes, is the vast difference between business organizations of the 20th century and those of today. Figure 2 compares both on eighteen different characteristics. The contrasts are striking, perhaps most so for leaders and managers faced with leading them in a fast changing 21st century with much the same responsiveness as did their entrepreneurial founders in the century just ended. STRUCTURING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ORGANIZATION Figure 2 offers a useful starting point in examining entrepreneurial organizational structure. In contrasting 20th century and 21st century corporations on different characteristics, it offers a historical or evolutionary perspective on organizational attributes associated with successful strategy execution today and just a few years ago. …
The Process of Change in a Community Organization: An Anthropological Analysis of an Urban System (Theory, Arab-American, Ethnic, Government; Dearborn, Michigan)
Parsimonious Expected Utility and In-the-Large Risk Premiums for the Undergraduate Curriculum
Duty, Environmental Advocacy Organizations, and the Commons
Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse, 2021
This chapter further explores the notion of “collective imperfect duty.” It uses this notion to f... more This chapter further explores the notion of “collective imperfect duty.” It uses this notion to further define “the commons” as a conceptual and often legal entity that emerges from “collective imperfect duty.” This phenomenon explains the rise of environmental advocacy organizations that express society’s interests in the most significant problem of our time. By promulgating their expertise into the public sphere, these organizations not only provide the scientific and socio-economic information and expertise necessary for our social discourse to be “reasoned,” but they also assert the “noble nature” of declaring the immorality of environmental destruction. They do this in our public discourse thereby making it “reasoned.” As illustrations, this chapter also examines the history of, and the current contributions of three of these environmental advocacy organizations: The Wilderness Society, The Sierra Club, and The Environmental Defense Fund. The role of a business coalition, the W...
The development of the Western philosophy of ethics initiates with the Greek and progresses throu... more The development of the Western philosophy of ethics initiates with the Greek and progresses through the Enlightenment and Immanuel Kant, who is generally recognized as providing the kernel of the modern elements of the subject. This Kantian kernel also forms a foundation for business ethics, and it is shown here to be an optimal coordinating system for linking the ethical content of the various subjects in the business core (accounting, fi nance, management and marketing). For this purpose, the Kantian approach is shown to be superior to other approaches. Furthermore, the Kantian approach lends itself well to consistency with market-based economics, and particularly to leadership development of the harmonious business organization. Illustrations of how the Kantian system can coordinate the ethical content of the various businesscore subjects are presented in the form of practical business duties derived from Kant’s categorical imperative.
Fair Negotiations
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
Management Perquisites and Imperfect Duty
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
Jensen and Meckling (1976) presented a seminal analysis of managerial perquisite consumption that... more Jensen and Meckling (1976) presented a seminal analysis of managerial perquisite consumption that used management utility maximization to show that shareholder wealth maximization need not be the economic goal of the firm. Notions of management duty were not incorporated into their analysis. When the management team and its pursuit of the nexus of imperfect duties is considered, then perquisite consumption has more dimensions than individual utility impacts. It affects the managerial pursuit of relations of virtue and the productivity of the managerial team. Management’s “pet projects,” overly risk-averse capital structures, associated excess liquidity levels, and other considerations are considered here as managerial perquisites with theoretically measurable impacts on equity value. Pursuit of the nexus of imperfect duty, however, transfers these into a pursuit of shareholder wealth (not a maximization) and other stakeholder impacts.
Reaching Unbiased and Stable Environmental Decisions Through Fair and Reasoned Discourse
Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse, 2021
This chapter explores the nature of our environmental resolutions. It reviews the “new economic i... more This chapter explores the nature of our environmental resolutions. It reviews the “new economic institutional” approach concerning how environmental agreements are established, evolve, and address possible oncoming problems. The philosophical notion of “fair and reasoned discourse” as applied to reaching these resolutions is reviewed. The specific criteria required for “fair and reasoned” is also more fully developed for applications in the latter chapters. Some of the biases in this discourse are reviewed as they affect environmental discourse and resolutions.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Chapter 1: Normative Ethics and Business Practice: An Introductory Review
Springer Texts in Business and Economics, 2021
Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Moral Duties
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
Kant offered his categorical imperative as the basis for a process that reflects common thinking ... more Kant offered his categorical imperative as the basis for a process that reflects common thinking about methods for deriving practical moral maxims and duties. This process is shown here as relevant for managerial leadership and firm efficiency. The role of reflective thought in establishing and maintaining these maxims is emphasized. The categorization of these maxims into associated perfect and imperfect duties is reviewed so that absolute prohibitions can be understood as distinctly different from those volitional duties with practical limitations.
Relations of Virtue
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
It is argued in this chapter that business firms can and do provide an incubator that enables the... more It is argued in this chapter that business firms can and do provide an incubator that enables the Aristotelian category of friendships of advantage to develop into friendships of virtue. This contradicts other literature that views acquaintances of utility as the business norm, and expresses pessimism concerning more advanced virtuous development of friendship within the business firm. It is argued here, however, that this virtuous development is integral to the Kantian social aim of pursuing a moral community, an aim which declares the appropriate moral motivation for business, and that certainly should incorporate a role for developing virtuous relations as a component of that pursuit. An atmosphere that encourages the development of relations of virtue is feasible, exists in real business, and is optimal for pursuit of moral business communities.
Reasoned Managerial Discourse
Imperfect Duties of Management, 2018
O’Neill posed some broad Kantian-derived principles applicable to society’s discourse. They are r... more O’Neill posed some broad Kantian-derived principles applicable to society’s discourse. They are reviewed and utilized here as especially relevant for reasoned managerial discourse. Applications to the politically sensitive issues of globalism, diversity (racism, sexism, and other problems), the company’s control system (responsibility assignment, performance evaluation, and rewards systems), and environmental degradation and restoration are provided. The latter is examined in detail as a significant issue capable of benefitting from these principles of social discourse.
Some Environmental Organizations and Their “Fair and Reasoned” Contributions
Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse, 2021
This chapter reviews the efforts of four environmental organizations and coalitions: (1) The Frie... more This chapter reviews the efforts of four environmental organizations and coalitions: (1) The Friends of the Everglades, (2) The Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, the (3) Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the (4) Riverkeepers coalition. They all illustrate the fundamental theme of this monograph, i.e., that our nongovernment environmental advocacy organizations and coalitions are necessary to satisfy the “fair and reasoned criteria” we require of public decisions. As established in previous chapters, this “fair and reasoned criteria” specifies that (i) the decision makers are uncorrupted by conflicts of interest, (ii) the decision makers are fully informed of the relevant scientific and socio-economic analyses, (iii) the decision process is fully open to considerations of all affected interests, and (iv) the decision itself is logical according to the “stability criteria” of Rawls as explained in Chapter 3. Ostrom’s institutional analyses and requirements are also applied to these fo...
Recognizing Environmental Duties and Applying Our “Fair and Reasoned” Criteria
Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse, 2021
This chapter further examines the necessary and useful distinctions between perfect and imperfect... more This chapter further examines the necessary and useful distinctions between perfect and imperfect duties. In this context, it introduces and examines propositions of (i) mutual dependence, (ii) the necessity of obtaining and applying knowledge of our environmental impacts, and (iii) the global environmental community. The chapter then examines the duty-based discourse criteria of O’Neill, and also Habermas, but in the context of environmental considerations. This material is shown to be the basis of our environmental advocacy organizations (EAOs), their coalitions, and their involvement in our “reasoned social discourse” and resulting resolutions. This chapter also introduces environmental applications of the Rawlsian criteria for “competent moral judges” and “considered moral judgments.” The duty implications of these sets of criteria establish what is meant by “fair and reasoned discourse and decisions” in environmental matters.
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Papers by Richard M Robinson