L’identité éthico-morale de l’organisation
Keywords:
organizational identity, corporate social responsibility reports, ambiguitiesAbstract
In this article, we will analyze the « ethico-moral » identity of the organization, under its teleological mode (centered on values and attitudes: ethical aim, Aristotle), deontological mode (centered on norms of behavior: moral normativity, Kant), or composite mode (interdependence between ethical aim and moral normativity). The ambiguities related to those three modes will be examined. The evolution of the ethico-moral identity of the organization will be described in its successive steps. Only the frst step Will be analyzed: the relative stability of the global ethico-moral identity of the organization, as it is mirrored in corporate codes of ethics and sustainable development reports. Then, we will look at the ethical/moral discourse of four companies (cosmetics industry: L’Oréal, Estée Lauder; foods industry: Danone, PepsiCo) to better understand its evolution between 2011 and 2020 and to assess the infuence of two basic corporate documents (code of ethics and corporate social responsibility/sustainable development reports) on the ethico-moral identity of those organizations. In the four companies, we have observed an « hyper-segmented » ethico-moral identity that follows from an axiological discontinuity between the code of ethics and the corporate social responsibility/sustainable development reports (between 2011 and 2020).
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