TY - JOUR
T1 - To know or not to know
T2 - Silent complicity in crimes against humanity in Argentina (1976–1983)
AU - de Haan, Willem
PY - 2020/11/16
Y1 - 2020/11/16
N2 - The aim of this study is to challenge the widely-held assumption that members of the general board of a multinational corporation will not be aware of what is happening on the shop floor in their affiliates in other parts of the world, in particular when such actions have profound potential moral and/or legal implications. This assumption of ‘corporate ignorance’ is refuted by a case study documenting the information that members of the general board of a Dutch multinational received about crimes against humanity that were committed during the 1970s in Argentina, and, more specifically, in and around their local affiliate where workers were forcefully abducted and disappeared. In this historical case, members of the general board appear to have been fully aware of these crimes while knowingly ignoring and remaining indifferent to the involvement of their local affiliate. In hindsight, the multinational corporation they represented can, therefore, be viewed as ‘silently complicit’.
AB - The aim of this study is to challenge the widely-held assumption that members of the general board of a multinational corporation will not be aware of what is happening on the shop floor in their affiliates in other parts of the world, in particular when such actions have profound potential moral and/or legal implications. This assumption of ‘corporate ignorance’ is refuted by a case study documenting the information that members of the general board of a Dutch multinational received about crimes against humanity that were committed during the 1970s in Argentina, and, more specifically, in and around their local affiliate where workers were forcefully abducted and disappeared. In this historical case, members of the general board appear to have been fully aware of these crimes while knowingly ignoring and remaining indifferent to the involvement of their local affiliate. In hindsight, the multinational corporation they represented can, therefore, be viewed as ‘silently complicit’.
KW - Argentina
KW - corporate involvement
KW - crimes against humanity
KW - enforced disappearance
KW - military dictatorship
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091764499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85091764499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00076791.2018.1523393
DO - 10.1080/00076791.2018.1523393
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091764499
VL - 62
SP - 1279
EP - 1302
JO - Business History
JF - Business History
SN - 0007-6791
IS - 8
ER -