Internal self-attribution of core responsibility

 Fig. : Individual self-attribution of core responsibility, authors’ translation, adapted from © IUW Berlin

1) Core business

A first central and obvious point of reference for determining the responsibility of a company is its core business. What is the mission of the company? What products or services are created and what do the value creation processes look like? The procurement and sales structures are also functionally linked to the core business, along with the use of resources required for the provision of services.

Example

It is easy to see that globally operating mining companies with multiple exploration sites, for example, have a different and bigger field of business than a company providing geological services to mining companies or suppliers of mining equipment.

It is therefore necessary to ask which ethically relevant and possibly critical aspects are at or near the core of the business and which are further away on the periphery of the business.

2) Core impact

A second key point of reference for the responsibility of a company lies in its core impact: Where and how does the company, through its activities or even its mere existence, have an impact in areas that cannot be described as its core business?

Example

Consider the supply of raw materials from a company that pursues mining extraction for the processing industries.

3) Core values

Thirdly and finally, but no less relevant, are the core values that are inherent to the company. These values do not necessarily have to be explicitly stated by management; they often operate beneath the surface as informal norms. Knowing and naming the values that you consider important in general and in your business practice and according to which you act consistently would however be ideal in a theoretical sense. Core values are of great importance. After all, the legitimisation of business activities vis-à-vis oneself and others is closely linked to one's own values. The decision whether to operate in sectors that many people consider immoral or at least questionable, for example, shows the importance of values.

Example

Whether or not you consider a core business in the arms, tobacco or sex industry to be ethically legitimate is a question of values. And the question of whether, in the mining industry, one just adheres to the legal requirements of the country in which one does business, or whether one exercises a self-commitment that goes beyond this, is also a question of the ethical values on which this behaviour is based.

In their interplay, the core business, the core impact and the core values result in the core responsibility of a company. The core responsibility modelled in this way is characterised from the previous considerations as an individual self-attribution of the company. It is initially its business, its impact and its values that the company uses to determine its own specific responsibility. This is shown in the left half of the following figure.

 Fig. : Model of Core Responsibility, authors’ translation, adapted from © IUW Berlin