Aristotelian citizenship and corporate citizenship: who is a citizen of the corporate polis

ABSTRACT. After defining the essential elements of Aristotelian citizenship, the article proposes to apply these criteria in its search for the equivalent of a citizen within the corporate polis. It argues that shareholding managers are the best positioned among a firm‟s constituents or stakeholders in fulfilling the role of corporate citizens. Greater participation by management not only in the control but also in the ownership of firms brings about benefits for the firm as a whole and for the managers themselves, as organizational citizenship behavior literature, among others, suggests. KEY WORDS: Aristotle, corporate citizenship, stakeholder management, managerial capitalism, organizational citizenship behavior Beyond the metaphor of corporate ci t izenship Although we normally treat business organizations as independent legal entities carrying out activities in pursuit of particular goals, they only exist thanks to the objectives and the resources of their human incorporators. Corporations are collective instruments created by individual citizens to achieve ends which they, otherwise, would be unable to reach as effectively. Those ends are most likely to have a sociopolitical dimension and reflect the values of the communit