Corporate VS. Individual Responsibility

Susan Gustafson Business Ethics Professor Mark Matthews, Ph.D. March 12, 2004 Corporate Crime--Who Should Be Held Responsible? Corporate vs. Individual Responsibility "Experience has shewn, that even under the best of forms [of government] those with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." --Thomas Jefferson Rampant corporate crime has forced us to question, once again, whom society should hold responsible for damaging corporate decisions. When corporations break the law, should we hold …

…the corporation should become eligible as a means to pay any liability yet due. I think the individual, as Velasquez argues, should ultimately become responsible for their actions to thwart future criminal behavior. Individuals as a group do make up a corporation. By their actions, intentions, and judgements they make the corporation what it is. This being so, they, should be held responsible for their own wrong doing, along with the corporation of their creation.