Bases Conceptuales Para El Estudio De La Responsabilidad Social De La Empresa

This paper is intended to show the convergence between argumentations regarding social accountability of individuals and institutions, based on ethical and philosophical grounds on one hand, and on the empirical sciences, on the other, despite the fact that they develop in different scenarios. The essence of the discussion aims at persuading that, more important than the motivation that social players may have to assume said accountability—which can be justified in different and even contradictory ways—is their need to adjust to varied cultural contexts and, in today’s functionally differentiated society, to diverse subsystems that operate in and keep an eye on the entrepreneurial environment. Thus, although the enterprises’ main social responsibility lies in their specific lines of business, the complexity of the means where they operate compels them to take on duties outside their own areas. Whether such context can help economic agents develop ethical virtues is beyond the scope of this work, but both the more and the less virtuous are equally obliged to pay attention to how they are viewed within their environment and then adjust their conducts accordingly. After explaining the author’s observation prism (1), the paper analyzes ethical (2) and empirical arguments (3) regarding accountability, to later apply them to the specific context of the functionally differentiated society (4) and of enterprises in it (5).