Thinking strategically about ‘corporate personhood’

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Singer, Alan E.^*

Affiliations: Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Alan E. Singer, Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA. E-mail: singerae@appstate.edu.

Abstract: The conceptual categories ‘person’ ‘citizen’ and ‘moral-agent’ are re-analyzed in a way that integrates perspectives, takes into account interactivity and makes helpful use of models or diagrams. The primary-qualities of these three categories are duly emphasized. Various aspects of the concept of a for-profit corporation are then also described and depicted (e.g. fiction, aggregate and real-entity) but with careful references to the logical (set-like) distinction between a corporation per se and its human members jointly or severally. The much-debated composite notions of corporate-personhood, corporate-citizenship and corporate-moral-agency are then re-analyzed, including their intentionality aspects, but with reference to their respective ‘primary qualities’. There follows a discussion of the apparent motives of the participants in the continuing debate about corporate-personhood, citizenship and moral-agency when they themselves emphasize selected qualities of the corporation.

Keywords: Corporate-personhood, corporate-citizenship, moral-agency, pragmatism, strategic-thinking

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-171758

Journal: Human Systems Management, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 129-140, 2017