Perfect or Imperfect Duties? Consumer Perspectives Toward Corporate Sustainability

Thumbnail Image
Date
2016-11-08
Authors
Jung, Sojin
Ha-Brookshire, Jung
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Authors
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Series
International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Annual Conference Proceedings
Iowa State University Conferences and Symposia

The first national meeting of textile and clothing professors took place in Madison, Wisconsin in June 1959. With a mission to advance excellence in education, scholarship and innovation, and their global applications, the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) is a professional and educational association of scholars, educators, and students in the textile, apparel, and merchandising disciplines in higher education.

This site provides free, public access to the ITAA annual conference proceedings beginning in 2015. Previous proceedings can be found by following the "Additional ITAA Proceedings" link on the left sidebar of this page.

Department
Abstract

Ha-Brookshire (2015) recently proposed the moral responsibility theory of corporate sustainability (MRCS) based on the corporate personhood concept recognized by U.S. law (Dubbink, 2014). That is, as a person, a corporation has moral responsibilities toward society and the environment, and can therefore intentionally decide its commitment level toward sustainability goals. Furthermore, MRCS shows that, as a legal person, all corporations bear perfect (i.e., universal and absolute) and imperfect (i.e., discretionary and meritorious) duties as Kant (1797/ 1991) suggested. In this light, the theory argues that the extent of corporations' commitment toward social and environmental responsibilities depends on how they perceive sustainability within the moral spectrum. While this argument is clear in the literature, consumers' perceptions toward corporate moral responsibility for sustainability are largely unknown. Therefore, this study was designed to assess consumers' perceptions on corporate sustainability within the spectrum of morality, with the hope of developing the list of perfect and imperfect duties of corporate sustainability as perceived by consumers.

Comments
Description
Keywords
Citation
DOI
Source
Copyright