Bio- and regenera- tive Medicine as an important growth Market

38 HHL RESEARCH REPORT 2012 SuSTAinABiLiTY And COMPETiTivEnESS 39
dr. werner JacKStÄdt cHair oF econoMic and BuSineSS etHicS
can Business Be
Managed without trust?
The dialogue between theory and
practice on corporate responsibility
is at the center of the work at the
Dr. Werner Jackstädt Chair of
Economic and Business Ethics.
Based on a theoretical concept and
with an orientation towards issues
from the practice, Prof. Dr. Andreas
Suchanek and his staff examine the
question of how profit and morality
can be made mutually fruitful according
to the golden rule: Invest in the
conditions of social cooperation for
mutual advantage!
Code of Responsible
Conduct for Business
The work of the chair centers on the
realization that trust is the fundamental
basis for societal cooperation . It examines
how companies and their leaders
can regain the trust which shrank over
the last few years using the “Code of
Responsible Conduct for Business” .
This Code, to which Prof . Dr . Suchanek
contrib uted, has been signed by executives
of more than 40 major German
enterprises, renowned family-run businesses
and medium-sized companies as
well as four leading bodies within the
economy .
“The Code of Conduct was not primarily
created to establish concrete rules but
to highlight an attitude which conveys
trust,” explains Prof . Dr . Suchanek .
A successful economy is not only
based on law and justice – it always
requires the people‘s fundamental
trust as well . The loss of confidence in
the market economy, companies and
their managers therefore represents a
serious problem . Trustworthiness is an
indispensable precondition for the sustainable
success of business: if you are
not trusted, you will not find customers,
investors, employees, suppliers or other
cooperation partners; nobody wants to
collaborate with someone they do not
HB H Hf HB
1 1 1 2
The scheme explains the embeddedness of one’s
actions in time. On one hand you depend on
given conditions of action (HB1) and it makes
sense to understand them, e.g. with respect to
social relationships and dependencies; on the
other hand every action does not only lead to
intended consequences (HF1) but frames also
your own future (HF2) and the track record
(reputation, trustworthiness) you’ll then have,
respectively.
trust . When looking at it that way, trust
is nothing other than an investment
in an asset . Customers or investors,
politicians or administrators, media
representatives or citizens: they all have
an impact on the value-added processes
in companies . Therefore, trust plays an
important part in all these interactions .
Consistent Actions
For people to consider this attitude
genuine, it must be reflected in the
actions of the decision makers and
their companies; words and deeds
must comply with each other, they
must be perceived as consistent . Many
companies have initiated a number of
activities and projects, even strategic
re-orientation, under desig nations such
as “CSR”, “social commitment” and
“sustainability” over the last 20 years
but, according to Prof . Dr . Suchanek,
what happens in the core business is
pivotal to credibility . For example: if
credibility is about to be gambled away
by closing down a location which still
makes profit – and the public perceives
this as a “relevant inconsistency” which
undermines trust – it does not help
much to support an art project (which
by it self may well be worthy of spon -
soring) . “Against this background, the
systematic causes for the loss of
con fidence must be envisioned in
order to find the right starting points
for measures in accordance with the
Code and avoid unwanted counterproductive
measures,” concludes Prof . Dr .
Suchanek .
The Code therefore seeks to establish
basic and generally-accepted guidelines
for responsible conduct in business
from which both expectations and
decisions on business can be drawn .
The main principle of the Code is:
“The wording of
the Code is neither
a law nor a document
defining
binding rules and
monitoring the
compliance thereof
using precisely determined
criteria“
prof. dr. andreas Suchanek
“The economy must promote the public
good .” The leading representatives of
the economy play a significant role in
the implementation of this principle
as they actively take a stand on topics
which are important for the sustainable
continuation of the company and
the maintenance of public trust . “This
Code is not about another new standard
such as ISO 26000 or the German
Sustainability Code by the German
Council for Sustainable Development .
In fact, it is about executives disclosing
their general benchmark for responsible
conduct in business .”
In doing so, the economy has made
society an offer of dialogue which
now needs to be substantiated . One
precondition crucial to success is that
both sides take the thought of dialogue
seriously . On the one hand, companies
must not confine themselves to emphasizing
their good deeds and sublime
principles but must actively take a stand
on the disputed topics . On the other
hand, representatives of the public and
civil society must not limit themselves
to merely challenging the trust and
over-simplifying conflicts; instead, they
should take the managers at their word,
set out their expectations, specify the
criticism through the guidelines of the
Code and consider the limitations of
how much responsibility businesses can
take in the process .
“The wording of the Code is neither a law
nor a document defining binding rules
and monitoring the compliance thereof
using precisely determined criteria,”
emphasizes Prof . Dr . Suchanek . It was
developed by the economy – and not external
influences – to express an attitude
and making it part of a dialogue in the
form of principles and positions .
www.wcge.org
Dissertations
Martin von Broock wrote about
the “understanding of the game” as
a category which shows the central
significance of individual perception
of societal processes, rules and situations
as a precondition of societal
order . With his work, he adds an
essential dimension to the existing
terms of “game moves” and “rules of
the game” .
Hans-Christian erdmann‘s thesis
dealt with the responsibility of
media companies . The thesis was
prepared in cooperation with the Axel-
Springer-Verlag publishing house .
Marcos Sáez obtained his doctoral
degree by examining the question of
trust between banks and retail customers
. The financial crisis showed
the elementary importance of trust .
Sáez‘ theses analyzes the challenges
for banks to invest in this “asset” .
Jan Sammeck submitted collective
self-commitment processes to an
economic analysis and identified
central factors of fundamental importance
for the success or failure
of these processes (possibilities of
measure ment of cost and return of
self-commitment, interdependence
of committing actors, and the cost of
implementation) .
Christian zangs submitted a thesis
on the influence of corporate responsibility
strategies within the context
of mergers & acquisitions and the
implications that may arise due to
differences in these strategies .
dr. werner JacKStÄdt
cHair oF econoMic and
BuSineSS etHicS
cHair donor
dr. Werner Jackstädt-Stiftung
cHair Supporter
Stifterverband für die
deutsche Wissenschaft
cHairHolder
Prof. dr. Andreas Suchanek
core coMpetencieS/
reSearcH intereSt
• corporate responsibility
• economic and business ethics
• management of trust and integrity
• methodology of social sciences
• theory of sustainability
contact
www.hhl.de/ethics