ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that there are two: the 'no harm principle and the 'principle of engagement'. The 'no harm principle', which must surely be the simplest, most venerable and most basic of all human rules of behaviour, true for individuals as well as organizations, states: 'No organization should knowingly cause any significant harm to any of its interest groups'. It might be thought that every organization inevitably breaches the no harm principle because, whatever it does, and however careful it is, so interdependent are we all that it is bound to cause significant harm to someone somewhere. If we reject the stakeholder theory as our model for acceptable corporate conduct, by what rules should organizations behave? Contrary to the stakeholder theory, the 'principle of engagement' says that organizations do not have to benefit everyone in sight; it recognizes no stakeholders of any sort and rejects all the claims they say they have.
