Sustainability and Business

Ethics in a Global Society

Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Legitimacy
• Business ethics is not only about internal market behavior
• But also about finding external principles of political governance to
regulate economic markets.
• Business ethics is not only about ideal theory but must be realized in
concrete practice and
• make a difference for good management strategy.
• Integrative business ethics is not only about external limitations on
business activity, but it also implies internal guidance for economic
value-creation.
• the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
management combined with CSR and business ethics gives
• A new purpose of the firm where CSR and business ethics integrate
into a new reality of the organizational culture, leadership and
management of the SDGs.
• The SDGs provide worldwide guidance for addressing the
global challenges facing the international community
• To consider business practices as based on ethical values moves trust
in the center of CSR as the background for accountability and integrity
of corporations.
• This is due to the fact that generalized mistrust and opportunistic
behavior con-stitutes the limits of fair business practice and cannot be
considered as the basis for internal unity and external legitimacy of
business corporations (Boatright,2003).
• to trust someone implies means to hold that person or organization
accountable over time believing that they will perform actions of
integrity and honesty.
 The level of trust in world decision-makers and leaders seems to be
diminishing as citizens take to social media platforms with the aim of
holding leaders accountable for decisions that aren't aligned to their
ethical value system.
• Legitimacy in global society is an important element of the
requirements for the good citizen corporation
• The ideas of responsibility, integrity, accountability, and trust can be
promoted as constituting elements in a theory of the legitimacy of
corporations in modern society.
• The quest for legitimacy is about not only the economic efficiency of
transaction costs, but
• also constitutes an effort to formulate the basis for social and political
legitimacy of corporations in democratic societies
• Legitimacy is founded on the social community and the
• human lifeworld based on views on justice as fairness, protection of
rights, and the promotion of the common good for society.
• Thus, according to this alterna-tive view of the legitimacy of business
in society, responsibility, integrity, and accountability emerges out of
the idea of business ethics where the license of operate and good
business of the firm is to be a good servant of society.
• With the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the
United Nations provides businesses with a value framework to be
forerunners for creating shared value for business and society.
• As good corporate citizens following the framework provided by the
SDGs in the formulation of their values and visions of CSR and
business ethics businesses are contributing to the important global
transition towards a sustainable future.
• In this context of SDGs management concepts of strategic CSR and
business ethics can be included to define the creation of shared value
of the SDGs.
• With focus on sustainability companies are entitled to create value
for sustainability, business and society as an integrated part of their
strategy.