Corporate Character Formation and CSR: The Function of Habit and Practice in the Mining Industry

John R Owen,Deanna Kemp

doi:10.4236/ajibm.2014.45030

Abstract

The mining industry provides a rich context through which to engage the practical and ethical limits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Recent debates in organizational ethics have drawn attention to institutional constraints which inhibit awareness raising and ethical practice within corporate settings. During the last decade, the mining industry has come under increasing pressure to improve its environmental, social and ethical performance. In an effort to respond to these more ethically-orientated external expectations, the mining industry has developed a range of internal regulatory mechanisms and process, which can be applied individually or in conjunction with other companies and organizations. This combination of internal and external drivers indicates a growing imperative for mining companies to ground CSR principles in their day-to-day operating practices. The challenge is to avoid organizational rules and procedures for CSR that lack depth and meaning and which fail to result in the wise and courageous use of personal agency. Instead mining companies must work to establish appropriate mechanisms that will see ethical norms adopted as organizational principles that guide, and result in, improved corporate conduct. Using the Aristotelean notion of “character formation”, the authors offer practical considerations for how this might occur in the mining industry.

Highlights

The practical dimensions of applied ethics in technically-orientated organisations, such as mining, have receivedHow to cite this paper: Owen, J.R. and Kemp, D. (2014) Corporate Character Formation and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): The Function of Habit and Practice in the Mining Industry
Following Aristotle’s suggestion that moral character development has the potential for wider collective application, “[t]his is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them”; we argue that the process of “character formation” as it applies to individuals is relevant to corporate entities
Instead we suggest a revision of auditing for CSR in mining in order to create a space where there is room for practitioner dialogue and deliberation about action and implementation, rather than by strengthening skills and capacities of actors outside of the organization which would see the ascendance of the “independent auditor”, or in Myers case the “external ethicist” [2]

Summary

Introduction

The practical dimensions of applied ethics in technically-orientated organisations, such as mining, have received. In an effort to respond to these more ethically-orientated external expectations, the mining industry has developed a range of internal regulatory mechanisms and process, which can be applied individually or in conjunction with other companies and organizations [17]. They include industry-level processes and structures, such as the suite of standards and guidance notes developed by the global mining industry’s peak body, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) [18] [19] or internal company mechanisms for measuring and monitoring the social and ethical performance of individual projects and operations, such as internal audits and assessments conducted by corporate offices [4]. We offer practical considerations for how this might occur in mining and, in doing so, challenging the proposition that this process should rely solely on external input from professional ethicists or auditors, arguing instead that reflective processes should become habitualized within the organization

An Aristotelean View of Individual Character Formation

Corporate Character Formation

Corporate Character in the Mining Industry

Breaking the Cycle

Conclusions