Ethics, Values and Corporate Cultures: A Wittgensteinian Approach in Understanding Corporate Action

All ethical behavior is tied to consciousness, i.e. the possibility of aware self-directed action. Corporations do not carry within themselves any kind of consciousness which could serve as a self-imposed guiding principle for corporate actions. Therefore corporations cannot be viewed to be ethical entities. If corporations cannot be considered to be ethical entities, the question, how ethical behavior could be entrenched in corporate actions has to be answered without recourse to moral guiding principles. Before asking how ethical norms could affect corporate action, we therefore have to ask on what grounds corporations do function. This leads us to the question of the systems-theoretical function of corporate cultures. Corporate cultures are the driving forces which constitute corporations as living social systems. As such they work like a funnel. The truly lived and prevalent values in corporate cultures filter the corporate perception of reality. Thereby they define, which problems are anticipated and which solutions will be developed. How these solutions are placed in the market then is itself an expression of the corporate culture. Corporate cultures thus do not only serve as self-referential flywheels for corporative perception and action, but influence also the gain or erosion of the stock of social capital, out of which corporations gain strength and focus. Insofar as they lived values of corporate culture serve as self-referential guidelines for individual actions, they function as frames of reference for corporate actions. From a functional point of view vivid corporate values work similar to consciousness in psychological systems. They organize the rules and rationales of corporate actions. Grasping how corporate cultures function is therefore grasping the way out of the fly-bottle of corporate ethics. The design of corporate cultures and CSR is not a question of corporate ethics, but of future viability. Since gaining future viability is an integral aim of all corporations, this aim must entail the development of values that fosters corporate resilience and sustainability. In this strive for future viability corporate values take the part which ethical values take in our self-understanding. They guide and trigger corporate action. Thus it is the design of corporate cultures and not claims for corporate ethics which decides about the future viability of corporations.