Beyond Compliance: Corporate Citizenship and Moral Capitalism

By John Spinnato, Vice President, North America Corporate Social Responsibility, Sanofi US

In reflecting on recent “scandals” in the corporate world - from noisy financial crises and resignations, to bribery and corruption allegations at home and abroad - I wondered what is needed in the corporate world to adopt an ethic of “good” corporate behavior. These simple questions require complicated reasoning to resolve.

A distinction has been drawn in philosophy between ethics and morality with the focus on ethics being more based on duty, obligation, and conduct, with morals being related more to the notion of virtue. I believe we may have allowed our discussion of business ethics to be too focused on duty and obligation and may have lost an appropriate amount of emphasis on the moral dimensions of that code.

Read more about what John Spinnato believes is needed to adopt "good" corporate behavior.