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Profit and Other Values: Thick Evaluation in Decision Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2017

Bastiaan van der Linden  and
R. Edward Freeman
Bastiaan van der Linden
Affiliation:
EDHEC Business School
R. Edward Freeman
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Abstract:

Profit maximizers have reasons to agree with stakeholder theorists that managers may need to consider different values simultaneously in decision making. However, it remains unclear how maximizing a single value can be reconciled with simultaneously considering different values. A solution can neither be found in substantive normative philosophical theories, nor in postulating the maximization of profit. Managers make sense of the values in a situation by means of the many thick value concepts of ordinary language. Thick evaluation involves the simultaneous consideration of different values: making sense of a value always involves knowing how to engage with it given the other values in the situation. This also goes for profit: maximization is only one way of engaging with the value of profit, and grasping whether maximization is appropriate involves considering other values. We discuss some consequences of our approach for stakeholder theorists and profit maximizers.

Keywords

stakeholder theoryprofit maximizingvaluesthick concepts
Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 353 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2017 

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