Toward an ethics of corporate restructuring

Corporate restructuring has had a profound impact on the US economy. While the problems of restructuring have been discussed in great detail, the solutions are elusive. What can or should be done to mitigate the impacts of restructuring on workers, communities, and society at large? The stumbling‐block to finding an answer to this question is the lack of a satisfactory ethical framework for evaluating restructuring decisions. The purpose of this essay is to develop such a framework. The first part of the paper reviews the ethical guidance provided by the standard theory of the firm. The second part explores an alternative framework based on the work of Elizabeth Anderson. Her “expressive theory of rational action” offers a more promising framework for evaluating management decisions with significant costs to society.