Abstract

This book provides students and scholars with a collection of thought provoking contributions focusing on the nexus of globalization and responsibility. With a concise introduction to the globalization debate and an overview of business corporations’ role in globalization’s multifaceted processes, the essays in the volume address a wide range of pressing issues concerning challenges and opportunities for responsible business and management. Some provocative arguments in the essays touch upon the dimension of morality and the issue of potential and actual (in)justice resulting from the global economic development. Incorporating respect for human rights into corporate governance and making it a worldwide standard practice is of pivotal importance. To this end, contributors in this book argue that corporate governance should be made more transparent by expanding accountants' roles to include a report on corporate activities relating to human rights protection. But despite the various fundamental challenges for business and management, such as addressing how to combat poverty and injustice, it is also argued with reference to Spinoza’s Ethics that profit-seeking in business should not be regarded as inherently immoral or unethical. Other essays in the book further explore the complex social-psychological foundation and conditions for responsible individual behavior in relation to business ethics. Drawing on Maslow's famous "Hierarchy of Needs" the psycho-moral foundation of self-transcendent behaviour is further explored as the difficulty of taking the perspective of “Others” is discussed. The book ends with a positive note suggesting that the egoistic utility maximization seeking motive, the bedrock of the conceptualization of the homo oeconomicus, may in fact provide the key for ensuring responsible individual behavior if it is embedded in the idea of love.