A contractual perspective on organisational integrity

This chapter looks at the family of social contract theories for business ethics (SCxB) and compares this approach to the family of integrity-based theories for business ethics (IxB). All SCxB necessarily build on existing work on the social contract for society itself. From the various elaborations of this idea, we focus on John Rawls’ (1971/1999) influential theory of social justice. We propose how the specific design of Rawls’ project must be modified to make it suitable for application to the field of business ethics. SCxB and IxB each cast their own spotlight on the defining problems of business ethics. Yet most business ethicists seem little aware of the difference in family backgrounds of these applications. This is illustrated by the example of the UN Global Compact.