Individuals' Responsibility in Corporations

I discuss role responsibly, individual responsibility and collective responsibility in corporate multinational setting. My case study is about minerals used in electronics that come from the Democratic Republic of Congo. What I try to show throughout the thesis is how many things need to be taken into consideration when we discuss the responsibility of individuals in corporations. No easy and simple answers are available. Instead, we must keep in mind the complexity of the situation at all times, judging cases on individual basis, emphasizing the importance of individual judgement and virtue, as well as the responsibility we all share as members of groups and the wider society. I begin by discussing the demands that are placed on us as employees. There is always a potential for a conflict between our different roles and also the wider demands placed on us. Role demands are usually much more specific than the wider question of how we should act as human beings. The terminology of roles can also be misleading as it can create illusions about our work selves being somehow radically separated from our everyday, true selves. The nature of collective decision-making and its implications for responsibility is important too. When discussing the moral responsibility of an employee in a corporate setting, one must take into account arguments from individual and collective responsibility, as well as role ethics. Individual responsibility is not a separate or competing notion from that of collective responsibility. Rather, the two are interlinked. Individuals' responsibilities in collective settings combine both individual responsibility and collective responsibility (which is different from aggregate individual responsibility). In the majority of cases, both will apply in various degrees. Some members might have individual responsibility in addition to the collective responsibility, while others just the collective responsibility. There are also times when no-one bears individual moral responsibility but the members are still responsible for the collective part. My intuition is that collective moral responsibility is strongly linked to the way the collective setting affects individual judgements and moulds the decisions, and how the individuals use the collective setting to further their own ends. Individuals remain the moral agents but responsibility is collective if the actions in question are collective in character. I also explore the impacts of bureaucratic ethic and its influence on the individual. Bureaucracies can compartmentalize work to such a degree that individual human action is reduced to mere behaviour. Responsibility is diffused and the people working in the bureaucracy can come to view their actions to be outside the normal human realm where they would be responsible for what they do. Language games and rules, anonymity, internal power struggles, and the fragmentation of information are just some of the reasons responsibility and morality can get blurry in big institutional settings. Throughout the thesis I defend the following theses: ● People act differently depending on their roles. This is necessary for our society to function, but the more specific role demands should always be kept in check by the wider requirements of being a good human being. ● Acts in corporations (and other large collectives) are not reducible to individual actions, and cannot be explained fully by the behaviour of individual employees. ● Individuals are responsible for the actions that they undertake in the collective as role occupiers and are very rarely off the hook. Hiding behind role demands is usually only an excuse and shows a lack of virtue. ● Individuals in roles can be responsible even when the collective is not. This depends on if the act they performed was corporate in nature or not. ● Bureaucratic structure affects individual thinking and is not always a healthy environment to work in. ● Individual members can share responsibility with the collective and our share of the collective responsibility is strongly linked to our relations. ● Corporations and other collectives can be responsible for harm even when no individual is at fault. The structure and the policies of the collective are crucial. ● Socialization plays an important role in our morality at both work and outside it. We are all responsible for the kind of moral context we create. ● When accepting a role or a position in a collective, we are attaching ourselves with the values of that collective. ● Ethical theories should put more emphasis on good judgement and decision-making instead of vague generalisations. My conclusion is that the individual person is always in the centre when it comes to responsibility, and not so easily off the hook as we sometimes think. What we do, and especially who we choose to associate ourselves with, does matter and we should be more careful when we choose who we work for. Individuals within corporations are responsible for choosing that the corporation they associate with is one that they can ascribe to morally, if not fully, then at least for the most part. Individuals are also inclusively responsible to a varying degree for the collective activities they contribute to, even in overdetermined contexts. We all are responsible for the kind of corporations we choose to support through our actions as consumers, investors and citizens.

Kongon demokraattinen tasavalta on köyhä maa, jossa kaivosteollisuuden tuottamat rahat päätyvät usein ruokkimaan vuosia kestänyttä veristä konfliktia. Onko ylikansallisilla elektroniikkayrityksillä ja heidän työntekijöillään vastuu käyttämiensä raaka-aineiden alkuperästä? Tutkielmani käsittelee työntekijän moraalista vastuuta työroolin sisällä (roolivastuu), sekä sen ulkopuolella (vastuu ihmisenä). Keskityn yksittäisen työntekijän henkilökohtaisen vastuun osuuteen kollektiivisesta vastuusta. Koska työtä tehdään usein virallisissa rooleissa, pohdin aluksi roolien syntyprosesseja ja rajoja. Käyn läpi työntekijän moraalisen vastuun peruskysymykset ja havainnollistan niitä esimerkkien avulla. Kirjoitan roolien syntymisestä, tarpeellisuudesta ja ominaisuuksista yleisesti mutta keskityn erityisesti työntekijän rooliin ja työpaikkojen luonteeseen. Selvennän myös eri tapoja, miten yksilö voi olla vastuussa asioista (vastuun ja moraalisen toimijuuden ehdot). Esittelen teorioita kollektiivisen vastuun jakautumisesta, sekä pohdin niiden ongelmia, keskustellen myös siitä, minkälaiset organisaatiot ja yhteisöt voivat olla kollektiivisesti vastuussa jostakin. Keskityn yksittäisen työntekijän moraalisen vastuun muodostumiseen ja siihen, millaisissa olosuhteissa työntekijä on vastuussa työnsä laajemmista seurauksista. Byrokraattiset rakenteet ja roolit saavat ihmiset usein ajattelemaan eri tavalla sekä teoistaan että niiden seurauksista. Roolien ja isojen organisaatioiden avulla ihmiset voivat tehdä tekoja, joihin eivät yksin pystyisi. Moraalinen vastuu työn seurauksista kuuluu siten sekä yksittäisille työntekijöille että organisaatiolle. Monet yritykset on kuitenkin rakennettu tarkoituksella sellaisella tavalla, että on vaikea osoittaa, kenellä on vastuu. Byrokratian luoma moraalisen vastuun haihtuminen on harha, vaikka vastuuta isoissa organisaatioissa on usein ongelmallista osoittaa tai joissain tapauksissa edes tiedostaa. Yritysten suunnittelussa onkin moraalikysymykset tuotava enemmän esille, ja organisaatioiden rakenteita on tarpeen vaatiessa pystyttävä muokkaamaan moraalinen vastuu huomioon ottaen. Yksilö on aina vastuun keskipisteessä ja vastuu ei katoa niin helposti kuin joskus väitetään.