Clarkson Principles for Business

The Clarkson principles for business are a set of standards intended to guide the decisions and actions of corporate executives and managers. Recognizing that business leaders exercise significant discretion in their roles as corporate agents, the principles seek to create an ethical context for the exercise of managerial authority. They do so by identifying a core set of moral obligations incumbent on managers at all levels of the enterprise. These duties address relations with stakeholders—that is, groups and individuals who are affected, positively or negatively, by corporate decisions and operations (e.g., customers, employees, investors, communities). In brief, the core obligations include engaging proactively in dialogue with stakeholders; disclosing risks stemming from corporate activities; distributing fairly the benefits and burdens that result from business operations; preventing, ...