This chapter presents a neo-Aristotelian account of stakeholder deliberation, arguing that a range of virtues is needed to ensure that consensus among stakeholders is based on a shared recognition of valid reasons, rather than on force or irrational persuasion. While proponents of political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) emphasize the need for corporations to engage in deliberation amid widespread market failures and regulatory gaps, fundamental normative questions regarding the legitimacy of agreements reached through such processes remain unanswered. Drawing on MacIntyre (1999), we argue that deliberation among stakeholders must be governed by deliberative virtues – including justice, honesty, humility, benevolence, courage, and mercy – to ensure that consensus emerges from an appreciation of salient reasons for action and the give-and-take of shared practical inquiry. Virtuous deliberation among stakeholders is a vital mode of moral agency in nonideal economic contexts, promoting eudaimonic efficiency by fostering market outcomes that are more just, as well as the self-constitution of market actors capable of responding wisely to moral complexity.

This chapter explores how multinationals have collectively defended their interests by actively participating in clubs and associations at both national and international levels. It highlights how multinationals pragmatically adapted their political strategies to sustain global operations, from the age of empires in the nineteenth century through the collapse of the first globalization, World War II, decolonization, the second globalization, and the resurgence of economic nationalism after the 2010s. Political challenges, including wars and pressures from governments and international organizations—such as the 1970s attempts to regulate multinationals —were key drivers of their political activism. The chapter examines the broader societal impacts of these efforts, including the consolidation of business influence in host and home economies, the global diffusion of standards, the institutionalization of regulations that facilitated and protected international investment, and tax reductions, particularly through the elimination of double taxation.

This chapter demonstrates that multinationals have been major contributors to environmental challenges. Before 1960 multinationals were clustered in natural resources and in developing countries, where they contributed to deforestation, poisoning soil and water systems, and the creation of monocultures resulting in biodiversity loss. Oil companies were a driver of climate change because of the industry’s role in greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile the spread of consumer goods multinationals encouraged conspicuous consumption and wasteful packaging. After 1960 rising environmental awareness and government regulations in the West led some multinationals to adopt sustainability policies, yet major oil companies deliberately obscured climate science to delay regulation. After 2000 many multinationals engaged in greenwashing while continuing harmful practices. Despite corporate commitments, shareholder value maximization often overrode genuine environmental responsibility. Environmental damage committed by multinationals continued, especially in countries where regulation and enforcement were fragile.

This chapter initiates a neo-Aristotelian theory of the firm by arguing that firms are not merely governance mechanisms to overcome market failures but sites of moral formation that foster the development of practical wisdom and the virtues. Building on critiques of the Market Failure Approach (MFA) and insights from the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) of the firm, we challenge the assumption, common in market morality literature, that internal firm norms can be evaluated independently of their effects on external stakeholders, arguing that virtuous relationships with external stakeholders play an important role in establishing and maintaining efficient internal norms. We also argue that, regardless of their efficacy in promoting organizational performance, hierarchical authority and cooperative norms are justified only insofar as they contribute to organization members’ flourishing. Drawing on McDowell’s notion of Bildung, we show how organizational life can “open employees’ eyes” to valid reasons for action, shaping their character in ways that contribute to their flourishing while also promoting organizational performance. This chapter thus reframes the firm as a moral community and provides the foundation for a virtue-based account of corporate purpose, to be extended in Chapters 5–9.

This chapter examines the relationship of global business and society by examining the historical role of multinational corporations in international market integration. After discussing how multinationals have played a role in integrating international markets since the nineteenth century, it focuses on multinationals and market integration in the European single market, in which multinationals both advocated for and navigated around dimensions of regional market integration. This chapter then considers the contexts of other regional trade agreements, including NAFTA, ASEAN to MERCOSUR/L. Finally, this chapter assesses the impact of multinationals and market integration on society and what backlash against both multinationals and trade frameworks reveals about the social consequences.

This chapter analyzes the role of multinational enterprises in driving both globalization and deglobalization waves historically. Emerging from industrialized Western economies, multinationals played a key role in expanding global capitalism after 1840 by transferring financial, organizational, and cultural assets across borders. They took various forms and proved highly resilient, withstanding shifts in policy regimes and often reinforcing rather than disrupting institutional and societal norms that restricted growth outside the West. Their ability, and motivation, to locate value-added activities in the most attractive locations means that they have often strengthened clustering and reinforced gaps in wealth and income. The most successful non-Western economies since the 1960s – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and later China – limited foreign multinationals or required technology transfers to local firms. Multinationals frequently contributed to global challenges rather than solving them, yet their overall impact was a complex mix of positive and negative factors.

This chapter extends our neo-Aristotelian theory of the firm by examining the role of financial markets and corporate governance in promoting eudaimonic efficiency. Financial markets promote efficient capital allocation primarily by aggregating information about relevant risks and opportunity costs. Yet the “uniqueness paradox” and the “investment dilemma” reveal the limits of the standard agency-based theory of corporate governance. Members of the board of directors must go beyond minimizing opportunism in order to mediate competing stakeholder interests in ways that foster stakeholder collaboration and firm-specific investment. This demands that directors and financial market actors exercise a range of role-differentiated virtues, including justice, courage, honesty, and trustworthiness. Our virtue-based model offers a more complete account of the moral responsibilities of relevant market actors in the governance and allocation of capital for firms, challenging the MFA’s sole focus on agency problems.

This chapter extends our neo-Aristotelian theory of the firm by arguing that firms exist not merely to minimize transaction costs but also to foster entrepreneurial agency that contributes to human flourishing. Building on the theory-based view of the firm (Felin & Zenger, 2009; 2017), we contend that firms institutionalize eudaimonic efficiency by enabling members to specialize in value creation through collaborative experimentation and moral development. Whereas the Market Failure Approach (MFA) is bound to static efficiency and Pareto optimality, our neo-Aristotelian account emphasizes the dynamic, epistemic role of the firm in discovering new combinations of resources, which markets alone cannot coordinate. Drawing further on McDowell’s notion of Bildung, we argue that the moral formation of employees in the firm involves a range of virtues that support firm innovation, including benevolence, justice, entrepreneurial perceptiveness, and humility. This virtue-based framework offers a rich account of the way managerial authority can be morally justified, namely when it supports employees’ flourishing and the discovery of better ways to meet human needs. In short, firms are moral communities that inculcate and are sustained by virtues that support collaborative innovation.

This introductory chapter situates the book within the fragmented landscape of business ethics scholarship, where MacIntyreans, Habermasians, Rawlsians, and others conduct debates within distinct clusters that seldom engage with one another, or with mainstream management research. We argue that a neo-Aristotelian approach can provide a more integrated view of business ethics by taking seriously the gap between ethical theory and concrete moral agency in the context of the firm. Our methodology employs a form of immanent critique, taking the Market Failure Approach as its starting point but arguing that its commitment to Pareto efficiency must be replaced by an account of eudaimonic efficiency grounded in human flourishing and the virtues. Part I provides the foundations for this critique, grounding the concept of eudaimonic efficiency in an account of human flourishing and introducing market virtues that both mitigate market failures and foster higher levels of efficiency. Part II extends this framework to the firm, drawing on organization theory, strategic management, and corporate governance to show how firms, as moral communities, promote eudaimonic efficiency by fostering collaboration and moral development. Part III examines the role of the virtues in stakeholder deliberations, arguing that such deliberation is a crucial means by which market actors can mitigate harms and rectify injustices that obstruct flourishing.

This chapter examines the discontinuous history of Chinese multinationals and their role in China’s evolving globalization. It highlights that China’s global engagement has been shaped by both market forces and geopolitical dynamics. The first wave, following the Opium Wars, saw Chinese firms competing unequally with Western multinationals, with growth ultimately limited by political forces. A resurgence occurred in the 1980s as China reengaged globally, leading to renewed overseas investment by Chinese firms. Currently, amid rising geopolitical tensions, Chinese multinationals are strategically reorienting investment from developed economies toward emerging markets. The chapter emphasizes the multifaceted impact of this globalization, but also a changing global landscape where politics and power are equally pivotal to understanding the trajectory of Chinese firms’ activities abroad.

This Companion volume presents the latest research on the history of multinationals and their impact on society and the environment. While often associated with large corporations like Ford or Coca-Cola, multinationals are defined not by size but by their ownership and control of assets in multiple countries. A key contribution of business history research has been to highlight the remarkable diversity in multinational strategies and organizational structures over time and to provide nuanced perspectives on the complex and often polarized debates surrounding their operations, showing how equally diverse and far-reaching are the impacts of multinationals. Understanding their historical role provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders navigating today’s economic landscape.

Our aim for this book is, in one sense, modest. We do not attempt to address pressing contemporary problems involving, for example, climate change, new technology, or growing inequality. Nor do we seek to adjudicate challenges to market society stemming from resurgent forms of authoritarianism and a growing disillusionment with capitalism. Instead, we have merely sought to articulate the implicit morality of market society in a more extensive manner.