Social contracting has a long and important place in the history of political philosophy (Hardin, 1991; Waldron, 1989) and as a theory of justice (Baynes, 1989; Rawls, 1971). More recently, it has been developed into an individual rights-based theory of organizations (Keeley, 1980, 1988), and as a way to integrate ethics and moral legitimacy into corporate strategy and action (Donaldson, 1982; Freeman & Gilbert, 1988). Currently, it is being proposed as an integrative theory of economic ethics (Donaldson & Dunfee, forthcoming). This paper will extend the Donaldson and Dunfee approach by arguing that social contracting can best be understood and applied in organizational settings if it is perceived and treated as a network governance process. This insight can benefit management scholars and practitioners alike, since it calls attention to the processes by which trust is created and sustained in on-going contractual relationships. It also strongly suggests that a new approach to applying managerial discretion, as moral agency, is needed to realize the full competitive and ethical potential of emerging network forms.
Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ) is the journal of the Society for Business Ethics and the leading scholarly journal in its field. It publishes scholarly articles from a variety of disciplinary orientations that focus on the general subject of the application of ethics to the international business community. The journal addresses theoretical, methodological, and issue-based questions that can advance ethical inquiry and improve the ethical performance of business organizations. BEQ maintains a contemporary focus on international business and is particularly interested in articles that discuss global business and economic concerns. It is also interested in the value dimensions of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality and culture, and how these factors affect and are affected by business questions. Each volume of BEQ includes topical articles, response articles, and review articles as well as the presidential address delivered at each annual meeting of the Society for Business Ethics.
Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org) is the publishing division of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s leading research institutions and winner of 81 Nobel Prizes. Cambridge University Press is committed by its charter to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible across the globe. It publishes over 2,500 books a year for distribution in more than 200 countries. Cambridge Journals publishes over 250 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide range of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. For more information, visit http://journals.cambridge.org.
This item is part of a JSTOR Collection.
For terms and use, please refer to our
Business Ethics Quarterly
© 1995 Cambridge University Press