Constrained Morality in the Professional Work of Corporate Lawyers

Abstract

In this article, we contribute to sociological literatures on morality, professional and institutional contexts, and morally stigmatized 'dirty work' by emphasizing and exploring how they mutually inform one another in lawyers' work activities. Drawing on interview data with 58 practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore, we analyze how they experience professional and institutional constraints on the expressions of morality in their work. Our findings illustrate how a dominant managerial and economic focus maintains and reproduces a constrained form of morality, limited to instrumental, utilitarian and commercial ends, and subordinated to lucrative client and firm interests. We discuss our findings in terms of the need to reform professions to allow for a more rounded and unconstrained moral reflexivity and autonomy in how work is undertaken and valued. This in turn has implications for how organizations and professions might achieve alternative moral institutional orders, and for legal work to avoid the moral and social taints of dirty work.

Opening Constructive Dialogues Between Business Ethics Research and the Sociology of Morality: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium

“…The article by Chow and Calvard (2020) studies the descriptions and justifications that practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore offer with respect to expressions of morality in their work. It shows that in the highly professionalized and institutionalized context of lawyering work, actors continuously feel pressured to adhere to the established order at the expense of acting according to their personal morals-and, at times, even the morals that are at the core of the law profession.…”

A Perspective on the Influence of National Corporate Governance Institutions and Government’s Political Ideology on the Speed to Lockdown as a Means of Protection Against Covid-19

“…The shareholder-oriented view of corporate governance prescribes responsibility as not being focused on right or wrong in and of itself, but rather, on the reduction of costs and increases of benefits (Pirson, 2020 ). However, it may be that we need to make a conscious and high-level break with ‘economistic’ narratives emphasizing extreme forms of competition and profit maximization, replacing and transcending them with more ‘humanistic’ narratives—emanating from the inside out of firms, rather than outside in—that privilege wider social engagements with wellbeing (Chow & Calvard, 2020 ; Pirson, 2020 ). The findings of this study point to the fact that we need to explore more thoroughly how different systems of capitalism across the globe have prepared for, and dealt with, the challenges of the pandemic, and what role for business responsibility is allocated in these systems to address social demands and the needs of wider society (Crane & Matten, 2020 , p. 4).…”

“…By extending this study to the organization level, a number of intriguing questions that could enlighten this debate could be investigated, such as, ‘what action have firms taken to protect their employees; to what extent have legitimacy concerns and political ideology affected these decisions; and how effective were these actions?’ Answers to these questions may provide insights on the way forward on how to develop systems that extend the responsibilization role (Shamir, 2008 ) of firms in society. For example, Herzog ( 2019 ) proposes ‘total integrated situations’ by aligning regulations, incentives, and responsibilities that extend beyond duties to customers to explicitly address the prevention of systemic societal harms (Chow & Calvard, 2020 ). A pluralistic approach that recognizes multiple pro-tanto moral obligations (Kahn, 2016 ), rather than a singular focus on profits and customer welfare, will certainly lead us to different conclusions on how different actors should be mobilized and responsibilized for mitigating unprecedented risk (Aboelenien et al, 2020 ).…”

Philanthropy and the Contribution of Andrew Carnegie to Corporate Social Responsibility

“…Yet, the crucial criticism is based on the idea of fair price. Corporations charge as much as they can or are allowed to under the market environment [115][116][117], therefore the question of corporate morality (e.g., [118,119]) and implementing an idea to charge less, leave the surplus in "customers' pockets", and let a society decide what to spend their money on, instead of a corporation overthinking the god complex, arises (see [120]). This paradigm, together with the extremely opposite approach of Friedman [121] are distant boundaries of the corporate social responsibility concept, where both Carnegie's principles and temporary management CSR approaches operate [RQ2].…”