A Moral Mapping for Corporate Responsibility: Introducing the Local Dimension—Corporate Local Responsibility (COLOR) ^†

Abstract

Although the accumulated knowledge repository of the Corporate Responsibility (CR) literature continues to expand, organizational- and institutional-level studies dominate the field. This article addresses this gap by introducing a driver-based approach to CR through the moral mapping of CR policies and theory-building case studies in the textile sector. Considering the CR notion’s diverse stakeholder involvement and cross-disciplinary nature, process tracing of diverse actors from the Industrial Revolution is conducted. A reconstituted Kantian method is employed to assess the moral responsibility of individual agents. Employing this technique, the study categorizes diverse policies and strategies based on decision-makers and the most probable ethical thought processes, or “maxims”, at the time of the decision-making. The findings identify gaps in conventional CR practices, giving rise to CSR-washed actions and irresponsible corporate behavior. To tackle these challenges, we introduce the Corporate Local Responsibility (COLOR) model. This model is based on moral mapping by integrating them into its four pillars to minimize the ethical dilemmas of various actors by engaging broader stakeholders and local communities in the decision-making process.

1. Introduction

Corporate Responsibility (CR) is an umbrella term that considers corporations as agents of change by their commitment to giving back to society while operating ethically and sustainably [1,2,3]. It is a multidisciplinary and multi-level field encompassing diverse stakeholder interests, from individual agents’ motivation to international regulations [4]. There are differences in the values of each agent, organization, and stakeholder; even the corporate behavior of the same organization can change from one location to another [5,6]. Hence, it becomes a vaguely defined concept that often gives rise to arbitrary, unethical, and irresponsible corporate activities that reflect poorly on exemplary business practices [7,8]. From the long-settled Multinational Corporations (MNCs) to start-ups with corporate make-ups, it is observed that CR became an apparatus for corporate public relations (PR) rather than a genuine commitment to the sustainability of the biophysical environment perse.

With a similar degree of ambiguity, the term sustainability may refer to a set of methods and strategies, or a social movement, that acknowledges the excessive use of resources, proposing an equilibrium between today’s nimiety and tomorrow’s deficiency [9,10,11,12]. The balance in the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability lays the ground for the sustainable development concept, which stands for stimulating economic growth while considering the limitations of nature, preserving public and common goods, and contributing to the well-being of present and future generations [10]. Therefore, sustainable development and CR notions, as they both imply economic, social, and ecological duties of business, are inherently interconnected. While sustainable development offers a more comprehensive framework that incorporates these responsibilities into long-term societal objectives, CR concentrates on the moral duties that companies have to stakeholders. The expanding literature makes clear that when properly executed, CR policies (CRPs) support sustainable development goals (SDGs) [13,14,15].

In today’s post-digital era, individuals and local communities are becoming increasingly important for sustainable business models. They form grassroots movements and autonomous communities and demand more transparency. However, the CR scholarship shows interest mainly in institutional and organizational levels, but researchers started giving attention to the individual level as well [1,16,17]. Thus, it is crucial to integrate these multidimensional and scattered approaches into clusters of policies that can be investigated similarly at every level. Presenting the historical trajectory of moral agents and synthesizing ethical theories into their co-evolution may shed light on the underexplored areas of CR and sustainable development [11].

This article aims to make three contributions to literature. First, we address these shortcomings by providing a moral mapping of CR initiatives through case studies in the textile industry. Having a huge global economic impact of $1.5 trillion in 2024, the textile industry is increasingly scrutinized for its environmental pollution, unsustainable practices, and labor rights violations [18,19]. This highlights the pressing necessity for systematic, robust, and ethical policies to mitigate financial risks and restore public trust. Second, by employing a reconstituted Kantian method, we study the moral accountability of individual actors in connection with moral mapping. And last, we introduce the COLOR model to avoid any unethical conduct at the local level by mitigating distinct ethical views into situational equilibrium states. In the following sections, we will explore the theoretical foundations of CR, present case studies from the textile sector, and introduce the COLOR model as a novel approach to CR.

2. Reconstituted Kantian Method for CRPs

Frederick [20] observed the most difficult issue of CR as “moral underpinnings of the idea are neither clear nor agreed upon”, noting that corporations are legal and social, albeit intangible entities that cannot bear moral responsibility. That is why subjective and ethical assumptions, or “moralistic catchwords”, would only make the issue more complex [20]. This complexity reveals itself in unsound CR implementation practices without theoretical backing [16]. Assessing the ethical standpoint of corporate decision-makers and grouping similarities could be an effective way to untangle the moral roots of CR practices.

To address this, we employ a reconstituted Kantian method together with an agent-based process tracing method, which provides a systematic framework for evaluating the ethical dimensions of CRPs. This technique entails breaking down business decisions into individual elements and reassembling them into context-specific “maxims” [21,22]. These maxims are then reconstituted using conflicting ethical perspectives, consisting of altruism and egoism, to achieve complementary approaches to the same policy, which are then used to identify the objective equilibrium state.

The usage of context-specific maxims has been explored in business ethics, CR, and sustainability scholarship [21,22,23,24,25,26]. The flexible formulation of the Kantian Method makes it a versatile framework to assess ethical decision-making, and it can be extended and reconstituted depending on the context [27]. Scharding [22] argues that the Kantian Method is useful for criticizing the moral actors and applies a reconstituted version of the Kantian Model to Wells Fargo’s fake accounts scandal, showing that the categorical imperative can also be applied to moral agents, as opposed to Altman’s [28,29] claims. The use case of the Kantian Method is primarily centered around the universalizability of moral obligations, which results in remaining more philosophical and restricted in broader applicability. In our research, we use a reconstituted Kantian method to build a broader framework that is able to provide conditions, triggers, and internal and external motives [24] for policies implemented by moral agents.

2.1. Reconstituted Kantian Method Steps

Step 1. Focus on individual corporate stakeholders to identify their actions.

(A): Individual agent who has the power to influence corporate policy.

(B): Business action that has moral consequences and/or ethical means of doing business.

Step 2. After identifying each action and each moral agent, analyze the unique circumstances under which the individual agents acted. For example, relevant circumstances might include regulatory issues, competitive pressures, and organizational culture-related considerations.

(C): Context-specific circumstances under which the action is taken.

(D): Additional factors and moral considerations that help the actor feel secure about the action or justify it.

Step 3. Having specified the unique circumstances, specify the intended consequence or goal of the action for the agent, along with any exceptions that would prevent the action from taking place.

(E): The end goal that the agent is eager to achieve through this action.

(F): Any exceptions that prevent action from happening.

Therefore, our maxim would look like the following:

“As (A),

I do the action of (B),

in the circumstances of (C),

accounting for (D),

to bring about (E),

unless (F) happens.”

Our variation of the reconstituted Kantian Method adds “accounting for (D)” to Rawls’s extended structure to grasp individual motive as per the research needs. Unlike Scharding’s [22] application of the method, instead of finding who is responsible for a scandal or fraudulent activity, we identified the responsible policies that companies implemented after challenging conditions. Additionally, we decided to focus on one of the most probable decision-makers, but with two opposing ethical perspectives. This way, we aim to find complementary maxims that can help form situational equilibrium states.

2.2. Reconstituted Kantian Method Application Through Case Studies

With the help of the reconstituted Kantian method, we provide a framework for moral mapping by classifying CRPs according to unique circumstances and personal motivations. First of all, we start by identifying the moral agent and tracing causal mechanisms from the main historical disruptive event that forms the current socio-economic system, the Industrial Revolution. We observe the emergence of today’s major agents in business policymaking, which is also known as stakeholders, to illustrate their co-evolutionary trajectories [11]. To demonstrate how our mapping works, we looked at the textile sector because it was one of the key manufacturing branches leading industrial growth during industrialization [30].

Reports from EuroCommerce [31] and ILO [32] discuss that textile production, despite heavy machinery and chemical involvement, requires intense human labor (predominantly female), but the profit margin stays relatively low. Therefore, the manufacturing takes place in cheap labor countries in Asia (including Asia Minor) and Northern Africa, while the vast share of value added goes to developed countries [31,32]. As various academic studies also point out, the issues related to sustainability can be observed industry-wide, such as labor exploitation, greenwashing practices, excessive resource use, and waste generation [18,33,34].

Comparing it with other industrial sectors, the average product lifetime of textile products (5 years, median = 8 years) and plastic waste generated by the textile sector (11%, median = 10%) are closer to median values; on the other hand, its fiber-based raw materials are generously estimated to be fully mechanically recyclable (See

Table 1. Industrial sector product sustainability comparison.

Industrial Sector	Mean Product Lifetime (Years) [37]	Mechanically Recyclable Polymer (%) [38]	Plastic Waste Generation, 2019 (%) [39]
Packaging	0.5	91	40
Consumer and Institutional Products	3	72	12
Textiles	5	100	11
Electrical/Electronic	8	36	4
Transportation	13	61	10
Industrial Machinery	20	86	0.4
Building and Construction	35	39	5

). However, with the emergence of fast fashion, which promotes the mass manufacture of cheap clothing with short lifespans, it is estimated that this unrealized potential causes economic opportunity loss of USD 500 billion worldwide, plus increased climate impact [35,36]. Given its multifaceted environmental and socio-economic issues, the textile sector offers an ideal environment to test our moral driver-based approach to CR.

Then, we apply our reconstituted Kantian Method on theory-building case studies from the textile sector that are (1) relevant and distinctive to each one of CRPs, (2) recent that the consequences of the action have been observed within the last five years, (3) and diverse both geographically and functionally so that deductions can represent sector-wide implications (See

Table 2. Case study comparison.

Case Study	Corporate Philanthropy in the Turkish Textile Sector	Too Dirty to Wear Campaign	Organic Cotton Fraud in India
Moral agent within the company	The business owner	Chief executives	Specialized departments
Source of data	Local news, research reports, in-sector interviews	Company communications and protesting social movement reports	Lab result reports, news, and the certification provider’s communications
Action trigger	Currency crisis causing high inflation	Protests and boycotts organized by a social movement	Lab test results and certification criteria mismatch
Function in the textile value chain	Supplier	Retailer	Certification/Audit
Action	Raising worker salaries before the salary renewal period	Implementing a climate action strategy for 2025	Removing fraudulent companies from the system
Consequence	Remained ad hoc	Complied with the 2025 agenda and issued its own audit system for its supply chain	Learning from the inefficiencies, taking measures to improve audit processes

). By using an interpretive perspective in these case studies without tracing the causal mechanisms back to the inception, we make assumptions about ethical dilemmas that each actor may face [40].

Furthermore, our proposed COLOR model sheds light on the ethical obligations of various stakeholders as well as the larger implications for corporate governance and ethical decision-making regardless of individual ethical viewpoints. The reconstituted Kantian method requires an informed rational agent to reach an equilibrium state [21]. Accordingly, community involvement, high-quality data collection, and transparent knowledge sharing are also crucial. Employing COLOR principles, an objective maxim at an equilibrium state might be created as follows:

“Everyone does the action of (B),

in the circumstances of (C),

regardless of (D),

to bring about (E),

unless (F) happens.

So do I, as (A).”

Therefore, it can be suggested that the COLOR model tries to mitigate the egoist and altruistic tendencies of individual agents and to find an objective principle at an equilibrium state.

3. Mapping the CRPs

Although the historical roots of corporations can be traced back to ancient Roman laws through the colonization period, they were not common until the Industrial Revolution and operated as quasi-public institutions that served as social and economic apparatus for government and religious powers [41,42]. As Carroll [43] suggested, we examine for-profit corporations’ responsible policies with the circumstances they operate in; therefore, the process tracing for our mapping starts from the early “enlightened” industrial capitalists’ practices. Even though scholars predominantly divide the evolution of CR into stages [20,42,43,44], we consider paradigm changes in the evolution of responsible business practices depending on the moral tradition they follow. Rather than separating them into historical stages from academic discourse changes, we focus on the emerged actors in response to changing circumstances after the Industrial Revolution.

Latapí Agudelo et al. [42] present an evolutionary pattern for CR practices by observing academic publications, regulatory and coercive decisions, and social and international movements. Another mapping was performed by Garriga and Melé [45], dividing CR theories and models into four territories: instrumental theories, political theories, integrative theories, and ethical theories. Similarly, Aguilera et al. [46] describe three types of theories focusing on individual-level factors and employee–organization relationships, which are instrumental, relational, and ethical theories. Our approach, on the other hand, categorizes corporate policies into four categories—Exclusive, Reactive, Integrative, and Participative—based on the moral agent, the nature of action, and the expected outcomes (see

Table 3. Corporate Approaches to Responsibility *.

CRP Groups	(a) Exclusive CRPs	(b) Reactive CRPs	(c) Integrative CRPs	(d) Participative CRPs
Who is responsible? (Moral Agent)	The business owner, Leaders	Business owners, Chief Executives, Leaders	Chief Executives, Specialized departments, and their managers	Individuals who make a decision suggest opinions for the decision or supervise at any level of corporate policymaking
Public access to crucial knowledge (Transparency)	Prohibited	Restricted	Partially allowed	Encouraged
Responsible for doing/complying with (Key terms)	Charity, philanthropy, and civic activities that are mostly related to the welfare of its internal stakeholders	Preserving corporate image, obtaining certificates and memberships that contribute to public trust	Complying with Legal Acts, National Regulations, and International Standards, like ISO26000 [47], scientific principles	Full transparency and scrutiny over the product, stakeholder involvement in decision-making, consumer education
Source of altruistic ethics	Actor-based (Virtue Theory)	Results-based (Consequentialism)	Actions-based (Deontology)	Contract-based (Social Contract)
Guided by	The arbitrary moral vision of the Leader	Public reactions and scandals, PR or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)communication experts, media, consumers, stockholders, opinion leaders	Independent auditors, outsourced specialists, international organizations, the international community	Public scrutiny
CR perception	Personal decisions of businesspeople	Decision-making process responsive to societal demand	Strategic necessity	A business model that integrates all parties affected by the business activity into the decision-making process
Corporate business goal	Generating economic profits	Evading regulatory costs	Attracting responsible investment	Gaining stakeholder trust to achieve a robust business model
	Maximizing share-holder value	Generating shared value	Securing competitive-ness with sector-wide accepted principles	Creating a company culture of transparency and shared responsibility
Motivation of the decision-maker (egoist)	Profit, wealth, and/or reputation maximization	Minimizing the loss by overseeing unexpected incidents	Keeping business as usual by standardized safer policies	Pursuing individual self-interest to be heard in the wider community
(altruist)	Well-being of closer stakeholders, i.e., workers and their families	Utilizing maximum benefits for society	Sustainable growth based on corporate strategy and rules	Building resilient relationships with all stakeholders

* Compiled by authors.

).

First, the characteristics of each approach can be identified by asking, “Who is responsible [as the moral agent]?”. This question delves into individual-level decision-making to understand the drives behind every business action. In our analysis, we identified a pattern from centralized policymaking to more distributed responsibility-sharing approaches. (a) The business owner or leader, (b) corporate leadership and chief executives, (c) specialized departments, and (d) every individual in the company who makes or suggests a decision are considered the moral agents for each corresponding approach (see Table 3).

Next, building on our previous analysis, we observed certain ethical actions performed more frequently by different organizations. With the “[the moral agent] responsible for doing/complying with what?” question, the main responsibilities of corporations with each approach can be revealed.

(a)

Exclusive policies focus on the welfare of internal sources and philanthropic activities;

(b)

The reactive approach prioritizes policies that have serious social demand or changing policies after a strong public reaction;

(c)

Integrating audit processes into the corporate structure by following international and national regulatory standards;

(d)

Participative policies set up omnichannel communication for all stakeholders and encourage active participation in the feedback mechanism.

Last, the motivation of the decision-maker might be revealed by the “What is the ultimate business goal of the corporate entity?” question. We consider the main goal of the business entity to be to survive in the competitive landscape, which requires, in most cases, more economic profit and, in other cases, a progressive business model.

(a)

Exclusive policies serve the purpose of maximizing shareholder value and generating economic profits;

(b)

The main goal of reactive policies is to minimize the loss caused by regulatory costs and public reactions to certain corporate behavior;

(c)

Integrative policies prioritize attracting more investment and generating shared value for stakeholders;

(d)

The main survival goal for participative policies is to be future-proof, robust, resilient, and strategically sound. This requires incorporating technology into the business model to obtain feedback from stakeholders, identify trends, and build trust.

Therefore, our mapping of CR approaches is based on responsible policymaking processes by identifying the responsible person(s), their responsibility, and their motivation.

3.1. Exclusive CRPs

Exclusive CRPs usually promote the company’s internal welfare and serve the best interests of its immediate stakeholders. They prioritize philanthropic initiatives to improve shareholder value [8]. This approach, rooted in egoism and virtue ethics, presents CR as an act of generosity rather than a basic duty. While some business leaders implement Exclusive CRPs to ensure employee wellness, other leaders use them to develop a good reputation. Famously, Friedman [48] claimed that “a corporate executive has responsibility over his/her employees while the main objective is maximizing the profit”.

Theoretically, egoism and virtue ethics form the basis of Exclusive CRPs. Virtue ethics focuses on the moral character of the decision-maker and emphasizes the cultivation of virtues like honesty, fairness, and integrity [49]. By promoting a company culture that prioritizes these virtues in the context of CR, they contribute to sustainable competitiveness and societal well-being [50]. Egoism, on the other hand, posits that actions are morally correct if they serve the self-interest of the decision-maker [51]. Conversely, within the framework of egoism, the morally correct course of action is considered as the one that serves the interest of the subject in question by maximizing profit [34,51].

Early industrial capitalists of the Industrial Revolution presented the cruel side of the capitalist business practices that exploited child labor with lower salaries in inhumane working conditions, resulting in the high mortality rate and body deformities in the younger generations in 1840s England [30,52]. Albeit having different cultural formations of social classes, the approach of industrial capitalists in other industrializing countries, i.e., the USA, Germany, and France, was not distinct from that of England since the business practices were based on ravenous profit-maximization ideas born with industrialization [30,52,53,54].

The working conditions of industrializing countries exposed their societies to a social catastrophe, such as working 14–16 h a day and having low-nutrient meals in the factory. Engels [52] described this era as “the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present” and the climax of the “social misery”. In response to this social misery, a group of “socially enlightened industrialists” were individually advocating for providing better working conditions to their employees. CSR scholars agree that these individual efforts are the precursor of responsible business practices [43,55]. Such initiatives, nevertheless, typically operated ad hoc and heavily depended on individual moral values rather than on established responsible behavior.

Exclusive CRPs might be characterized by a focus on internal stakeholders and usually include philanthropic activities, like employee welfare initiatives, ethical leadership, and donations, to maintain employee loyalty and enhance leadership reputation [56]. When corporate leadership uses Exclusive CRPs, although they are neither solicited nor compelled to do so, they usually take responsibility for (1) concerns inside the organization, (2) interests of stockholders and owners, and (3) donating to those in need for philanthropic reasons.

The outcome would be to keep employee motivation and stockholder return high while showing outsiders how their organization brings welfare to insiders [57]. The research of Osho et al. [58] finds a strong relationship between the welfare/morale of employees and the company’s profitability. Policies that increase human resources motivation are also crucial in business since these policies can prevent skilled labor from leaving the company and create a competitive advantage by attracting competitors’ skilled labor or forcing competitors to take similar measures.

Case Study: Corporate Philanthropy in the Turkish Textile Sector

The financial concerns of employees have a direct impact on their productivity [58]. During the currency crisis in 2021, Turkish textile manufacturers adjusted worker wages to compensate for the adverse consequences of surging inflation [59]. Companies mainly announced this mid-term salary increase from their social media channels. Therefore, the leaders of Turkish textile companies see it as their organizations’ responsibility, and in their best interest, to motivate their employees by maintaining their living standards similar in front of rising inflation. While portrayed as a philanthropic gesture, this action also carried out a strategic objective—promoting workforce stability and productivity, which exemplifies an Exclusive CRP.

Considering that each individual case has different motives and circumstances, the maxim for business owners for egoist ethics in decision-making would be as follows:

“As a corporate leader (A),

I do the action of initiating a preemptive wage increase for employees (B),

in the circumstances of inflationary and competitive pressures (C),

accounting for workforce stability and corporate reputation improvement opportunity (D),

to bring about reducing employee turnover and increasing productivity (E),

unless significant financial constraints or adverse market conditions emerge (F).”

And for virtual ethics, the maxim would be:

“As a corporate leader (A),

I do the action of initiating a preemptive wage increase for employees (B),

in the circumstances of inflationary and competitive pressures (C),

accounting for my moral imperative to ensure fair compensation (D),

to bring about gaining employee loyalty and preserve their dignity (E),

unless significant financial constraints or adverse market conditions emerge (F).”

According to the report published by the Middle East Technical University [60], many companies from the Turkish textile industry that are in the four major cities of the earthquake-hit region temporarily stopped their operations in the aftermath of the earthquake in February 2023. From those who replied to their survey, one-third of the companies gave unpaid leave to their workers, while only half of them could give full salary after the disaster [60]. What is more problematic here is that global apparel brands sourcing from these companies displayed a lack of oversight and compassion; on the contrary, they neglected to postpone delivery dates, forcing some companies to continue their operations after the disaster [60]. It might be suggested that Exclusive CRPs focus on internal welfare and shareholder value, often resulting in temporary solutions to broader issues.

3.2. Reactive CRPs

The flexibility of corporations in decision-making is what sets them apart from governmental institutions. Faster policy implementation to address growing threats and adaptability to new demands from diverse stakeholders might be seen as a strength of business policymaking [61]. Reactive CRPs are implemented in response to external pressures, such as scandals, protests, and boycotts. They aim to tackle immediate threats to a company’s finances and reputation. However, the gap between coercive slowness and corporate flexibility creates an ethical dilemma in which both egoism and consequentialism would be determinants of corporate behavior. Consequentialism attaches importance to the results of actions, suggesting that the best choice is the one that leads to the most positive outcomes [62]. On the other hand, if the results benefit the person making the decision, that leans more toward Egoism [51].

Both ethical theories, at their core, emphasize the ends rather than the means, and for them, the grey areas with a lack of rules and regulations are the battleground. Moreover, consequences come later than decisions and actions. This opens another front for corporate executives to evade accountability for their decisions if they are gone before consequences are noticed. In practice, predicting outcomes, measuring the results for overall welfare, and always making the best decisions for the desired outcomes are challenging for decision-makers. In such obscurity, corporate policy for some companies tends to keep the status quo by only complying with coercive regulations and pursuing policies that defend corporate image and reputation to avoid potential financial losses [63]. Reactive CRPs are not proactive in nature to prevent such situations but rather formed after a strong public reaction.

The social misery of early industrial capitalism brought about social movements in the classical form, which were mostly labor movements and class movements heavily influenced by Marxist/Hegelian thoughts of philosophy [52,64,65]. Social movements can be described as “collective challenges [to elites, corporations, authorities, other groups or cultural codes] by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities.” [66]. By nature, they are the ones with the idea of results and outcomes that corporations ought to achieve, such as the progressive movements of the late 19th century, the civil rights and peace movements of the 60s, the environmental movements of the 70s, cultural movements, and women’s movements [64,65,67]. Sustainable development, for example, is a product of the increasing public support for these environmental movements [68].

This paradigm shift made human rights, labor laws, workers’ health and safety, and child labor integral issues of politicians’ and business people’s agendas [53]. The co-evolution of social movements and industrial relations has produced other actors, such as labor unions, non-governmental organizations, and civil society [53]. New forms of social movements started to emerge from the Cold War’s bipolar world order as a result of globalization and rising awareness of discrimination and inequalities [65]. New social movements, by making CR discussed in the literature, have been a driving force behind responsible policies and business transformation. Nowadays, consumer activism has taken over the task, putting pressure on businesses to adopt various policies to maintain their market position. That is why many companies use Reactive CRPs to address immediate threats to a company’s reputation and financial stability.

Case Study: Too Dirty to Wear Campaign

Stand.earth is an environmental NGO and climate activist group famous for their “Too Dirty to Wear” protests in 2017 that had a huge impact on the fashion industry and its supply chain [69]. Addressing Levi’s leadership, they accused Levi’s of contributing to air pollution and climate change, which “endanger the health of local communities in dozens of countries” by allowing factories in their supply chains that ignore the Paris Climate Agreement and run primarily on fossil fuels [69].

In response to the protests, Levi Strauss & Co. [70] published “Climate Action Strategy 2025” as their Reactive CR program. The company leadership publicly accepted the accusations of high greenhouse gas emissions and committed to reducing the emissions of its global supply chain by 40% by 2025 and increasing their scrutiny over their value chains (see Figure 1) [70,71]. The company’s focus on mitigating reputational damage points to a major drawback of Reactive CRPs; these policies tend to be driven more by external pressures than by genuine internal ethical values. However, the sectoral implications of these policy changes, from passive retail distribution to a more involved audit and certification practice, are still important.

The maxim for corporate executives for egoist ethics in employing a Climate Action Strategy would be as follows:

“As a corporate executive (A),

I do the action of employing a Climate Action Strategy (B),

in the circumstances of the pressure from social movements, consumers, and media (C),

accounting for protecting corporate reputation and mitigating financial losses (D),

to bring about maintaining customer trust and market position (E),

unless diminishing public attention makes this strategy redundant (F).”

And for the consequentialist ethics, the maxim would be:

“As a corporate executive (A),

I do the action of employing a Climate Action Strategy (B),

in the circumstances of the pressure from social movements, consumers, and media (C),

accounting for the long-term impact of the ecological footprint reduction (D),

to bring about sustainable operational improvements (E),

unless insurmountable financial obstacles prevent effective implementation (F).”

Both moral intentions of the corporate executive should involve the public demand and the best possible response for the time being. When companies fail to meet these expectations, they risk losing their market share. The more people are involved in social movements to demand sustainable and ethically produced clothing, the more companies comply with these demands.

3.3. Integrative CRPs

Integrative CRPs blend established standards and regulations into corporate practices. Therefore, companies act under ethical obligations and legal guidelines, regardless of the consequences of their actions. This approach is firmly grounded in deontological ethics, which emphasizes the importance of following moral principles. Deontological ethics, as frequently cited from Immanuel Kant’s writings, asserts that the morality of a decision or an action can be assessed by its compliance with an established set of duties and rules regardless of the outcomes it produces [26]. This ethical paradigm positions itself against arbitrary policymaking and emphasizes the need to apply moral standards consistently and universally [26].

The Industrial Revolution produced a demand for standardized business practices and established duties, which resulted in the formation of professionalization and institutionalization of standards. The same social misery that formed social movements also helped the emergence of salaried professions, gave rise to independent audit practices, the proliferation of international agreements on business, and formed international standards. Mass movements fall short when there is a need for a high degree of generalized and systematic (domain) knowledge [72,73]. At the individual decision-making level, new professions emerged as another pressure group for making change possible [72,74]. Occupation-focused universities and training schools started appearing in the late 19th century, aiming to reduce information asymmetries and provide domain expertise in these fields [73,74].

Standardization of business practices helps set universal uniform rules and be consistent with international norms, national regulations, and societal concerns. Standardization is the steppingstone for the Fordist type of production, which is characterized by dividing work into smaller, specialized tasks on an assembly line to increase efficiency, reduce the need for skilled labor, and standardize the mass production system. Standards can, in some cases, override the authoritative rules and, in other cases, fill the gap between lagging coercive legislation and corporate flexibility. That is why they are often perceived as voluntary social regulations [75]. Professionalization and standardization are crucial to prevent the exploitation of resources by setting rules and principles.

Integrative CRPs aim to standardize corporate practices, incorporating international standards and national regulations with organizational guidelines. Any misconduct by moral agents can be isolated from the rest of the operations. In this approach, the CR strategy is presumably planned by a specialized department aiming to fully comply with international regulations, sectoral guidelines, and independent audits. It can be observed that regulations might be partially internalized by corporations and experts. This approach usually offers preventive measures and proactive policymaking by complying with the accepted standards of today while adopting pioneering policies in the given sector. CR models, like CSR, can also turn into standards. Indeed, Herciu [76] suggests the guideline of the International Organization for Standardization, ISO 26000:2010 Guidance on Social Responsibility, would be one of the most comprehensive documents on CSR, since this guidance comes from one of the most trusted organizations in the corporate world. Additionally, some independent institutions issue sectoral standards that ensure sub-contractor or supply chain compliance with certain rules and principles.

Case Study: Organic Cotton Fraud in India

The usage of sustainable materials and production methods in the textile industry is usually standardized and certified by independent international organizations, like Oeko-Tex, Better Cotton, GOTS, and GRS. It is commonplace to market eco-labels from these popular certifying bodies as “eco-friendly”, “organic”, or “recycled” [77]. In 2020, the GOTS discovered an unprecedented fraudulent scheme in India in which 20,000 metric tons of conventional cotton (almost one sixth of India’s 2020 organic cotton production [78]) was deceitfully labeled and certified as organic [79,80]. Fraud has serious consequences for the industry, including a decline in consumer confidence, monetary losses, and legal issues [81]. In response, improvements to certification and regulations have been adopted to prevent this kind of activity from happening again [82,83].

The maxim for supply chain professionals in the brands that bought organic material for egoist ethics would be as follows:

“As a supply chain manager (A),

I do the action of enhancing due diligence protocols within our supply chain (B),

in the circumstances of decreased public trust due to the certification scandals (C),

accounting for the ineffectiveness of these new protocols (D),

to bring about attracting more responsible investment (E),

unless another systemic regulatory scandal arises (F).”

And for the deontological ethics, the maxim would be:

“As a supply chain manager (A),

I do the action of enhancing due diligence protocols within our supply chain (B),

in the circumstances of the decreasing public trust due to the certification scandals (C),

accounting for our obligation to spot inefficiencies and uphold industry benchmarks (D),

to bring about improving stakeholder trust and setting higher industry standards (E),

unless a more effective and comprehensive regulatory framework is established (F).”

The lack of transparency in the supply chains, inefficiencies in collecting reliable quality data, the complexity of the textile supply chains, and deafening silence from the global apparel brands make it almost impossible to verify if the certified and labeled sustainability claims are genuine. Global apparel brands have more public visibility and, therefore, power over the sector to ensure the integrity of their supply chains and to build consumer trust for sustainability standards. Otherwise, this kind of scandal will be more frequently uncovered, causing public distrust and destroying hard-earned sectoral achievements.

3.4. Participative CRPs

Participative CRPs aim to give little to no room for corporate decision-makers to act arbitrarily. Furthermore, they empower each moral actor with tools to address and rectify injustices and inefficiencies in the business processes, audit mechanisms, corporate policies, and societal reflections. Instead of inactively relying on coercive authorities and other stakeholders to take corrective actions, all stakeholders are involved in decision-making [4]. Ultimately, explicit social contracts will create a responsibility cycle where everyone has responsibility to everyone.

The social contract may be accepted as an altruistic concept that serves to balance the powers of unequal forces, but at the core, it accepts the moral agents from each side of the social contract as egoistic individuals who seek to satisfy their desires and to maintain their survival [84]. In these implicit social contracts, moral actors use limited information to set up strategies that influence decision-making at the macro and/or meso levels. For fair and just social contracts, information should be explicitly communicated not only from the business side but also by the broader stakeholders.

Egoism does not automatically imply the conduct of immoral activities, and should not be considered as unethical [85]. However, it might lead to unequal power structures when the resources are scarce [8]. According to Hobbes [84], there is no major difference among individuals in terms of ability and capability; nevertheless, it leads to the problem of “equality of hope”, which practically means all moral agents have the capacity to possess what they desire. The scarcity of resources intensifies the tension between moral agents, leading to “the state of nature” [84]. Only when the powerful agree to or are forced to give up privileges they enjoy, can they mutually transfer these rights to a higher authority by forming the "social contract” [84].

The social misery of industrial capitalism or the colonialism era could be an example of the state of nature, where powerful and wealthy formed companies as legal agents that have no duties to society or have limited rules and regulations to be obliged to, and they felt entitled to suppress weak to maximize their profit and execute their power over others. Therefore, mobilizing social movements, civil society, and labor unions, making alliances with “enlightened” businesspeople, elites, and politicians, and setting up audit channels with independent research, professionalization, and standardization have formed and reformed the implicit social contract between business and society.

Until the improvements in information technologies, especially increasing usage of social media and easier access to crucial company data, customers were mostly in a receiver position of passive one-way communication with corporations, media companies, and social movements. Therefore, they used to reflect their beliefs, values, and social statuses into their consumption choices with scarce information [86,87]. As a result of social media and online networks amplifying consumer and community voices, CR has undergone a transformation from being an administrative obligation to a collaborative approach. Companies have started to use Participative CRPs to hear the voices of customers and broader stakeholders. By the implementation of stakeholder feedback and integration of social initiatives, businesses can build more resilient corporate strategies and gain competitive advantage [61]. Consumer education is another important feature of Participative CRPs. Instead of taking advantage of consumer ignorance, companies started proactively educating their customers about their environmental impact, the best sustainability practices for their products, and their inclusive actions.

A New Model: COLOR

As Participative CRPs suggest a transition toward shared responsibility, its effective execution calls for a structured framework. The COLOR model expands upon these notions by providing a systematic approach to include individual and local perceptions in business decisions. Through the integration of moral mapping and stakeholder involvement, the COLOR model aims to be a viable option to assure community-driven CRPs and long-lasting accountability.

With the increasing accessibility of information and communication technologies, there are attempts to increase supply chain transparency, education accessibility, remote collaboration, and risk modeling to make CR models more inclusive [88,89]. COLOR draws the line of responsibility at the micro-levels while synthesizing accumulated knowledge on CR with local culture and demands. It suggests a modular approach to the social contract, which is conducted between the affected and benefited/caused actors through assemblies of stakeholders at the local level regularly to find reasonable ways to reconcile the points of divergence among community, business, and customers.

Considering the model’s memorable and intriguing name, it would be remiss not to draw an analogy to Color Theory (CT). The subject is intellectually stimulating as it brings arts and natural sciences together at the academic level with the publication of Newton’s Theory of Lights and Colors [90]. Counterintuitively, CT suggests primary colors may change depending on the purpose or usage; CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) for print/paint and RGB (Red, Green, Blue) for screen display purposes. Mixing complementary color pigments at maximum intensity produces black, which is called “subtractive color mixing”; on the other hand, a bright white light is formed as light beams of complementary colors are added on top of each other, known as “additive color mixing” [90] (see Figure 2). For the analogy, the same corporate policy can produce different outcomes when it is used for different survival strategies, i.e., profit versus robustness oriented. Thanks to our reconstituted Kantian method, we are able to form complementary maxims for unique cases and blend them to produce an objective maxim at an equilibrium state.

Another thought-provoking topic of CT is that elements like objects (with color pigments), intermediary texture (opaque or glossy), light sources (or shadow), and receptors (i.e., eyes), can affect color perception [91]. For example, the photonic scale nanostructures on the wings of the Saimbeyli Blue (Polyommatus theresiae) butterfly refract white light, making it appear blue without the need for blue pigments (see Figure 3). Even with stable environmental variables, if the receiver has an impairment in the perception, the color might appear different. To make an analogy, corporate communication on CRPs might also misinform the public about corporate actions. In keeping with our moral mapping, we suggest four key elements of the COLOR model that each correspond to defined CR decision-making approaches: operational, movement, professional, and collaboration elements (see Figure 3).

• Operational Element: As we would like to observe the immediate surroundings of the business, this element refers to the object. Enabling companies to incorporate diverse perspectives at all levels, the operational element ensures that local stakeholders and workers actively shape decision-making. It encourages corporate leaders to nurture a culture of collective accountability, structural innovation, and participatory decision-making. Rewarding favored ideas while discouraging harmful initiatives helps all immediate stakeholders work toward common goals.
• Movement Element: Since it represents the outside influence and sheds light on the real shades of corporate actions, movement element represents the light source. CRPs have to respond to evolving public expectations; therefore, it stresses trust-building, public scrutiny, and grassroots activities to guarantee that business strategies are consistent with community values. An effective change management mechanism is, therefore, a necessity to drive robust change.
• Regulation Element: Corresponding to the standardized procedures as the scales attached to the object, resonates with the texture. It promotes transparency through the availability of high-quality data collection and knowledge-sharing platforms, inviting stakeholders to examine corporate claims and contribute to responsible policymaking. The high-quality data enable experts to simulate the needs and expectations of stakeholders to make CRPs more resilient to the changing conjuncture.
• Collaboration Element: This is the eyes of the local communities that scrutinize and look into a different perspective to improve processes, which are the receptors. Establishing localized decision-making structures that allow affected communities to shape business policies. It offers a modular approach based on the idea that decisions should be made closer to the effects of an action. Thus, responsibility is distributed across all levels of business operations.

The frequent practice for companies to be informed about local actors is usually through supplier registration platforms, which are only collected for compliance purposes. Because of the information gap between stakeholders, local actors are usually the least informed, and their opinions are usually based on one-way communication. By blending these elements throughout different business levels, COLOR attempts to turn CR from an organizational-level compliance practice into a modular, stakeholder-driven policymaking platform.

4. Discussion

Over the course of a century, global textile brands transformed their operations from owning factories to relying on their complex web of suppliers, which is fueled by minimizing costs and complying with regulations [18,92]. This operational change meant outsourcing the labor-intensive part of the production from the cheaper labor countries, where there happen to be less strict regulations while allowing them to narrow their focus on fundamental competencies, such as product design, branding, PR, and marketing [18,92]. However, as case studies illustrate, global apparel companies, especially the ones that built their brand rhetoric on sustainability discourse, remained silent, or failed to pioneer sector-wide changes. The case studies present the varying effectiveness of different CRPs.

In the first case study, Exclusive CRPs provide short-term relief but fail to bring systemic commitment. Turkish textile companies showed a corporate philanthropy example by offering salary raises to their employees before the national minimum salary renewal period. However, this ad hoc policy significantly shifted just within two years following changing circumstances. Moreover, global textile brands mostly disregarded the voices of earthquake-affected communities [60]. Initiatives like the Pay Your Worker—Respect Labor Rights agreement aim to standardize industrial relations to prevent such irresponsible actions during times of crisis and, therefore, to convert arbitrary Exclusive CRPs into more stable and standardized Integrative CRPs [93,94]. With a more standardized, stakeholder-driven approach and broader accountability mechanisms, our maxim at an equilibrium state would be the following:

“Everyone does the action of initiating a preemptive wage increase for employees (B),

in the circumstances of inflationary and competitive pressures (C),

regardless of my moral imperative or the reputation improvement opportunity (D),

to bring about fulfilling our obligation to the local stakeholders (E),

unless significant financial constraints or adverse market conditions emerge (F).

So do I, as a corporate leader (A).”

The next case study illustrated how one of the biggest textile brands was forced to watch out for their suppliers and the footprint of their products by social pressure. Nevertheless, this kind of social movement campaign targeting brand reputation also provides temporary solutions to wider sectoral problems. The main reason that gives rise to such practices is a lack of accountability, traceability, and wider stakeholder involvement. Levi’s efforts to reduce their footprint are crucial but not enough to reach wider stakeholders, especially consumers because the footprint caused by consumer use has no significant change in the GHG emission projection (see Figure 1).

Reactive CRPs function as an enterprise survival strategy rather than an extensive framework for ethical business. While they can deliver remarkable outcomes, their reliance on outside stimuli makes them inherently unreliable, which draws attention to the importance of integrative and participatory methods to CR. The objective maxim for this case study might be adjusted to the situation as follows:

“Everyone does the action of employing a Climate Action Strategy (B),

in the circumstances of high ecological impact in our supply chain (C),

regardless of the pressure from social movements, consumers, and media (D),

to bring about maintaining customer and stakeholder trust (E),

unless insurmountable financial obstacles prevent effective implementation (F).

So do I, as a corporate executive (A).”

The last case study portrays the limitations of Integrative CRPs since they offer compliance mechanisms yet remain vulnerable to manipulation. While companies commit to international standards, the absence of strict control allows fraudulent behavior to persist [53]. Constant public scrutiny and stakeholder involvement are crucial; compliance by itself does not ensure responsible policies. Without transparency and proactive stakeholder participation, these standards have the potential to turn into procedural paperwork rather than sincere dedication to accountable business actions. The maxim tailored to the case study can be as follows:

“Everyone does the action of enhancing due diligence protocols within supply chains (B),

in the circumstances of noticing shortcomings of standardization processes (C),

regardless of decreased public trust due to the certification scandals (D),

to bring about setting higher industry standards (E),

unless a more effective and comprehensive regulatory framework is established (F).

So do I, as a supply chain manager (A).”

Integrative CRPs serve to institutionalize responsible business practices, but they are only as successful as the institutions that enforce them. Participative CRPs, on the other hand, go beyond compliance procedures and reputation management strategies by encouraging reciprocal involvement in policymaking [61]. Therefore, it is crucial for companies to collect high-quality data, validate them from diverse sources, and provide a platform to share these data for omnidirectional communication. To do so, they will create bridges among local communities, suppliers, vendors, contractors, and other stakeholders.

5. Cross-Sectoral Applications, Limitations, and Future Implications

Responsible decision-making can be found almost entirely, which broadens the applicability of the moral mapping into different fields and sectors. We assume that similar moral mapping can be performed for differentiating democracies or ruling political parties by their policies. To illustrate, there are government policies that (a) exclusively benefit the supporters and elites of the ruling party, (b) are accepted as a result of public demand, (c) comply with international treaties and regulations, and (d) consider the needs and expectations of diverse groups and local communities with an open omnidirectional conversation. At the same time, the COLOR model can be applied to sectors distinct from the textile sector, like technology or the financial sector.

In the wake of post-pandemic uncertainties, stockholder interest pushed tech giants to decrease labor count, leading to the unethical practice of backdoor layoffs [95]. Some IT companies compensated fairly for mass layoffs at the individual and local levels by various initiatives, while the great majority of others failed to prevent further disruption in the local communities; on the contrary, they caused psychological traumas for impacted individuals and socio-economic problems in the local communities [95]. Layoffs are corporate strategies that corporate leadership use in consideration of maximizing stockholder value. What defines the corporate culture and management styles is the layoff style and the aftermath policies. In the case of managers who prefer backdoor layoffs, the COLOR model may not be helpful to managers and leaders who prefer this approach due to their moral immaturity and low accountability. Other managers could benefit from COLOR by producing more robust and resilient policies that align with COLOR elements. Accepting responsibility for a discontinued employment relationship, managers could design mitigation strategies tailored to the needs of the local community and the family in question. Unfortunately, even the giants of the industry play a numbers game, forgetting that those numbers refer to the dignity of the affected individuals and have an even greater impact on their surroundings.

This study portrays a novel moral mapping framework for CRPs, but its limitations must also be considered. One possible limitation is the industry-specific focus in the case studies, which, despite its significance for socio-economic, ecological, and historical reasons, might not accurately reflect the diversity of CR dynamics across different business models. However, the moral mapping and the COLOR model applied in this study proved effective in categorizing CRPs of various enterprises in the textile value chain; thus, showcasing their potential to be implemented in other sectors. Therefore, future research could explore how the moral mapping framework performs in industries with distinct CR challenges and regulatory landscapes.

In this article, we presented a model for a colorful scenario, keeping in mind Carroll’s three distinct scenarios for the future [96]. We believe that the future of CR is highly correlated to technological developments, especially to platforms for accessing high-quality data and opinion exchange. The more data democratized, the more accountable corporate decision-makers become. The advancements in AI technology also indicate that AI-powered autonomous decentralized CR systems have the potential to develop a COLOR-based model that integrates wider stakeholders into companies’ responsibility sharing, data democratization, and local collaboration practices.

6. Conclusions

Businesses that are subjected to continuous public scrutiny may face disadvantages compared to those that operate with less collective oversight [18,85]. The former group, often high-profile companies, or those in the public eye, must carefully manage their reputation, adhere to regulations, and maintain transparency. In contrast, companies that operate with less scrutiny may have more freedom in their decision-making processes and resource allocation, which may result in exploitation of public resources and human labor [34]. The balance between public visibility and autonomy impacts a company’s ability to thrive in a competitive market.

Since the early industrial capitalists, immoral business actions caused serious harm to public goods while bringing serious wealth to business owners; on the other hand, the efforts to mitigate their excessive exploitation of resources brought about coercive rules and regulations, social movements, independent audit mechanisms, labor unions and all other measures that keep businesses in check [53]. Our mapping attempts to classify any kind of decision given within the context of business regardless of the motives of the decision-maker because we can never truly know the real intention of an action without considering the whole circumstances. Therefore, we tried to map responsible business practices with the help of ethical frameworks, which led us to identify the corresponding stakeholders.

(1)

The virtue ethics versus ethical egoism debate took us to the “enlightened industrialists,” the businesspeople (1) of early industrial capitalism, who were concerned about the living conditions of (2) employees and took initiative for (3) coercive bodies to change the law.

(2)

The consequentialism versus ethical egoism debate led us to (4) social movements, which formed (5) labor associations and (6) civil society organizations, and altogether they demanded specific actions from other stakeholders.

(3)

The deontological ethics versus ethical egoism debate introduced us (7) professional associations, (8) independent researchers, and (9) standard-setting bodies, which are working on rules and regulations to check and balance corporate impact.

(4)

The social contract versus ethical egoism debate showed the rise in (10) customers and (11) media figures after the developments in information technologies. They started forming social contracts with business stakeholders, independent stakeholders, and non-business stakeholders and (12) broader stakeholders, like local communities, minorities, and other discriminated groups.

Although we identified these stakeholders in different storylines, they all have influenced and been influenced by each other while they have affected and been affected by the same events. Therefore, nowadays, it is almost impossible to differentiate these actors from each other. Workers of a company would be members of a labor union, but some may opt-out to be a member of the union for distinct reasons. We can play this game forever; a customer of one product can be the business owner of another product with professional qualifications in another field and be an influencer in a social media platform belonging to a local community but supporting a social movement with a different cause. Therefore, in this chaotic market, there is no clear separation between stakeholders, and guessing their intentions by their identities would be misleading. Business ethics scholars often position altruistic motives as being ethical while implying self-interest and profit maximization strategies as the main source of unethical behavior [85]. In this article, these two distinct ethical positions are not accepted as mutually exclusive; on the contrary, each decision is presented as a varied COLOR value. In contrast to traditional CR models, COLOR promotes a more balanced ethical framework by extending accountability beyond businesses to include affected populations, independent professionals, and social movements. We aim to bring about an approach that has the potential to blend into a wide range of vivid colors. Transparency, public scrutiny, access to high-quality data, and collaborative innovation are the key concepts to keep the business in constant check, while on the individual side, whether the intention or motive of the action is egoistic or altruistic would only add a new tone to the COLOR’s palette.

As a next step, future work may focus on developing an AI categorization model that enables the implementation of the moral framework in various academic fields, industrial sectors, and other areas that require responsible policymaking. Doing so would help validate its generalizability and understand multilevel and cross-sectoral adaptations. Moreover, identifying the categories of CRPs will be useful in finding the importance of each policy locally and measuring the COLOR performance of targeted companies, organizations, and sectors.