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Guest Editors’ Introduction: Ethical Management of Intangible Assets in Contemporary Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2017

Rossella C. Gambetti ,
T. C. Melewar  and
Kelly D. Martin
Rossella C. Gambetti
Affiliation:
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
T. C. Melewar
Affiliation:
Middlesex University
Kelly D. Martin
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
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Abstract:

This essay explains how intangible asset management oriented toward enhancing corporate performance increasingly embeds ethical concerns, primarily to address stakeholder expectations. We discuss how ethical dimensions in intangible asset management may be co-constructed and intertwined in organization-stakeholder interactions to generate collaborative meaning making according to a stakeholder-centric view of the firm. In so doing, we adopt an ethical view that acknowledges that stakeholders beyond the firm have equal status and agency to engage in a social construction process of intangible assets nurtured by ongoing dialogue and reciprocal understanding between organization and stakeholders. The essay concludes by envisioning how the dialogic process of social construction of intangible assets involving both organization and stakeholders is best conceived as a social contract between the two that enacts a cultural bond between intangible assets together with ethical and societal resources that are collectively generated, owned, and maintained.

Keywords

corporate identitycorporate brandcorporate reputationsocial constructionist perspectivestakeholder-centric view of the firmsocial contract
Type
Special Section
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 381 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2017 

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