Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Development, Poverty And Business Ethics, Laura Hartman, Patricia Werhane

Laura Hartman

Proposals surrounding poverty alleviation are greatly affected by the ways in which we think about people living in conditions of extreme poverty. The success or failure of those proposals, when operationalized, depends upon our mental models and the ways in which we calibrate and then integrate the narratives we encounter. While others have envisioned a role for multinational enterprises (MNEs) in alleviating global poverty, these schemes lack the catalysts of moral imagination and systems thinking necessary to modify MNE mental models toward sustainable solutions that also create board-based stakeholder value. We will outline the parameters of the challenge, explain the …

Development, Poverty And Business Ethics, Laura Hartman, P. Werhane, K. Clark

Laura Hartman

Proposals surrounding poverty alleviation are greatly affected by the ways in which we think about people living in conditions of extreme poverty. The success or failure of those proposals, when operationalized, depends upon our mental models and the ways in which we calibrate and then integrate the narratives we encounter. While others have envisioned a role for multinational enterprises (MNEs) in alleviating global poverty, these schemes lack the catalysts of moral imagination and systems thinking necessary to modify MNE mental models toward sustainable solutions that also create board-based stakeholder value. We will outline the parameters of the challenge, explain the …

Stimulating Investments In Haitian Smes, Laura Hartman

Laura Hartman

A Peer-to-Project site to link lenders, donors and investors with SMEs and social projects in Haiti.

Goals: Long-term sustainable operation, Increased access to development capital for entrepreneurs, Spurring large-scale economic development in Haiti.

Business, Profit, Partnership And The Global Common Good, Scott Kelley, Patricia Werhane, Laura Hartman

Laura Hartman

The chapter considers the reduction of poverty through for-profit initiatives, with a critique of global corporations that take goods and services out of the "bottom of the pyramid" rather than developing new markets that provide new jobs as well as export products and services. Thus, the common good is served through economic empowerment without having to appeal to global philanthropy. An inversion of intuitive thinking is proposed whereby models for for-profit initiatives are considered that will contribute to the common good rather than using a notion of the common good to inspire global companies.

« Les Multinationales Et L’Avenir Des Sweatshops » (“Multinational Corporations And The Future Of Sweatshops”), Laura Hartman, Denis Arnold

Laura Hartman

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we explore the tension between the perspective of the free-trade economists and that of the labor advocates with regard to voluntary responses to the sweatshop dilemma. Second, we introduce and define the concept of positive deviancy and relate it to the apparel and footwear global labor markets. Third, we explain how moral imagination is one possible rationalization for this deviancy and then demonstrate how moral imagination may lead to the enhancement of norms in the area of global labor challenges. In order words, what are the root causes behind mistreatment of workers? …