City Research Online

Abstract

Although Howard R. Bowen’s 1953 book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (hereafter SRB) is regarded as a classic in the fields of business ethics and management, the impact of SRB has been taken for granted and has rarely been evaluated. Problematizing the use of classics as core to the advancement of scholarly fields, we analyze the purpose underlying the citation of SRB (why it is cited) as well as the breadth (what is cited) and the depth (how much is being discussed) of scholarly engagement with this classic. Combining analytical induction, quantification and a critical citation context analysis of 435 citations from 320 articles citing SRB between 1953 and 2023, we identified three main categories of use—arguing, defining, and landmarking—and evaluated the depth and breadth of such scholarly uses with SRB. Our results reveal how these uses of engagement differ across disciplinary domains and over time. Our analysis of breadth and depth confirms the continuous superficial engagement with SRB. We rely on this case to conceptualize the paradoxical legacy of Bowen, discuss ethical issues inherent to the politics of citation and evaluate what ‘fair’ uses of classics could be.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Publisher Keywords:	Howard R. Bowen, citation context analysis, classics, business ethics, business and society
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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