Beckman, Ludvig | 2026
Journal of Business Ethics
Following a prominent view business corporations are “private governments” that exercise discretionary authority over the workforce. Assuming that authority requires legitimation and that the predominant mode of legitimation is by democratic procedures, it is commonly argued that corporate authority is legitimate only if the workforce is granted rights of democratic participation in corporate decision-making. This paper take issue with the premise that corporations are necessarily governed by appeal to authority. A major defect in the current literature is that the conditions for the exercise of authority are scarcely defined. Following predominant conceptions of authority in legal and moral theory, this paper argues that there are two necessary and together sufficient conditions for exercises of authority: the intention that others comply with directives and that subjects generally comply or conform with directives (de facto authority). This account is used as a reference point to show that prevalent accounts of the relationship between employees and the management in corporations are unable to substantiate the conclusion that the management is exercising authority. Neither the fact that the management make decisions affecting the workforce; that the management enforce decisions against employees; that corporations are hierarchical organizations; or that corporations are legally entitled to authority, are reasons to conclude that employees are subjected to exercises of corporate authority. Though the conclusion is not that corporations cannot or do not exercise authority, the claim defended is that authority is a contingent rather than necessary feature of business corporations.
