IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v157y2019i1d10.1007_s10551-017-3671-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Management Nexus of Imperfect Duty: Kantian Views of Virtuous Relations, Reasoned Discourse, and Due Diligence

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Robinson

    (SUNY at Fredonia)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Robinson, 2019. "The Management Nexus of Imperfect Duty: Kantian Views of Virtuous Relations, Reasoned Discourse, and Due Diligence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 119-136, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:157:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3671-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3671-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3671-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3671-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Boatright, John R., 2002. "Contractors as stakeholders: Reconciling stakeholder theory with the nexus-of-contracts firm," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(9), pages 1837-1852, September.
    3. Williamson, Oliver E. & Winter, Sidney G. (ed.), 1993. "The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolution, and Development," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195083569.
    4. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    5. Buchanan, Allen, 1996. "Perfecting Imperfect Duties: Collective Action to Create Moral Obligations," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 27-42, January.
    6. Heli C. Wang & Jinyu He & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2009. "Firm‐specific knowledge resources and competitive advantage: the roles of economic‐ and relationship‐based employee governance mechanisms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(12), pages 1265-1285, December.
    7. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    8. Paul L. Fackler, 1993. "Delivery and manipulation in futures markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 693-702, September.
    9. David Ohreen & Roger Petry, 2012. "Imperfect Duties and Corporate Philanthropy: A Kantian Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(3), pages 367-381, March.
    10. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Warner, Jerold B., 1979. "On financial contracting : An analysis of bond covenants," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 117-161, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ignas Bruder, 2021. "A Social Mission is Not Enough: Reflecting the Normative Foundations of Social Entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 487-505, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alexander Brink, 2010. "Enlightened Corporate Governance: Specific Investments by Employees as Legitimation for Residual Claims," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 641-651, June.
    2. Andreani, Ettore & Neuberger, Doris, 2004. "Relationship finance by banks and non-bank institutional investors: A review within the theory of the firm," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 46, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    3. Grillet, Luc L., 1991. "Insurance hedging in the theory of the firm," Discussion Papers, Series II 166, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    4. Velamuri, Rama & Venkataraman, Sankaran, 2005. "Why stakeholder and stockholder theories are not necessarily contradictory: A knightian insight," IESE Research Papers D/591, IESE Business School.
    5. Warfield, Terry D. & Wild, John J. & Wild, Kenneth L., 1995. "Managerial ownership, accounting choices, and informativeness of earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 61-91, July.
    6. Doris Neuberger, 2005. "What’s Common to Relationship Banking and Relationship Investing? Reflections within the Contractual Theory of the Firm," Finance 0503001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Baarda, James R., 2003. "Current Law & Economics Debates: Tools for Assessing Fundamental Cooperative Changes?," 2003 Annual Meeting, October 29 31802, NCERA-194 Research on Cooperatives.
    8. Catherine Crapsky & Lionel Escaffre, 2009. "De la hiérarchisation des créances à la titrisation économique : les apports de la norme comptable à l'évolution du financement d'une opération de LBO," Post-Print hal-00769388, HAL.
    9. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:47:y:2009:i::p:483-506 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    11. Lehn, Kenneth, 2021. "Corporate governance and corporate agility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. Eitan Goldman & Gary Gorton, 2000. "The Visible Hand, the Invisible Hand and Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 7587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ghulam Abid & Binish Khan & Zeeshan Rafiq & Alia Ahmed, 2014. "Theoretical Perspectives of Corporate Governance," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 3(4), pages 166-175, December.
    14. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2005. "Company Financial Structure: A Survey and Implications for Developing Economies," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Green & Colin Kirkpatrick & Victor Murinde (ed.), Finance and Development, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Evans, Lewis T & Quigley, Neil C, 1995. "Shareholder Liability Regimes, Principal-Agent Relationships, and Banking Industry Performance," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 497-520, October.
    16. Iwasaki, Ichiro & 岩﨑, 一郎 & イワサキ, イチロウ, 2007. "Endogenous board formation and its determinants in a transition economy: evidence from Russia," CEI Working Paper Series 2007-1, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. Christopher A. Manning & Mauricio Rodriguez & Stephen E. Roulac, 1997. "Which Corporate Real Estate Management Functions Should be Outsourced?," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 14(3), pages 259-274.
    18. Lin, Zhijun & Song, Byron Y. & Tian, Zhimin, 2016. "Does director-level reputation matter? Evidence from bank loan contracting," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 160-176.
    19. Guidi, Marco G.D. & Hillier, Joe & Tarbert, Heather, 2010. "Successfully reshaping the ownership relationship by reducing ‘moral debt’ and justly distributing residual claims: The cases from Scott Bader Commonwealth and the John Lewis Partnership," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 318-328.
    20. Filippi, Maryline & Chapdaniel, Alain, 2020. "Sustainable demand-supply chain: an innovative approach for improving sustainability in agrifood chains," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 24(2), March.
    21. MARTIN Ludivine, 2007. "The impact of technological changes on incentives and motivations to work hard," IRISS Working Paper Series 2007-15, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:157:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3671-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.