Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics

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PREFACE

Indeed, I must disclaim any originality for the views I put forward.

—JOHN RAWLS¹

Though it is difficult to pin down with any precision the provenance of ideas, I believe I can trace the origins of this book to a late-fall day in 1994 under a tree on The Lawn at the University of Virginia—Mr. Jefferson’s Academical Village. There are places in the world that simply feel like proper venues for scholarship; in the shadow of The Rotunda is such a place. There was a particular tree against which I would sit and read as I searched for a defensible moral foundation for stakeholder theory. I had come to Virginia’s Darden School to study stakeholder theory and my interest in the work of John Rawls rendered it something of a foregone conclusion ...