Faculty

Caulfield, an assistant professor in the Law and Ethics Area at the Gabelli School of Business, has focused his latest research on how to structure institutions to advance corporate social responsibility and moral corporate governance. It’s a unique line of inquiry at the intersection of philosophy, business, and politics, drawing on insights from moral and political philosophy, as well as organizational theory and nonmarket strategy.

“A lot of the conversations about corporate governance and corporate social responsibility are happening in management venues, but they don’t have philosophers throwing their ideas into the hopper,” he said. “I’m really trying to integrate these literatures.”

One of Caulfield’s working papers explores a constitutional theory of corporate governance that likens the structuring of a firm to the development of a nation-state, where organizational decisions and policies are made through discussions and votes. “We don’t make these decisions by bargaining prices. We have a dialogue. It’s more of a political process than a market process,” he explained.

This political process—and the rules and organizational structures it creates—can impact how firms either uphold or compromise their values in the face of external forces. “Sometimes we can feel like we get whiplash when firms turn on a dime. One day they feel a certain way about politics and social justice, and the next day they walk themselves back,” he said. “Whatever one thinks about the correct positions on different issues, we have some idea that there’s something disorderly going on—that a company should not decide their views depending upon the winds of the day. They shouldn’t just rock back and forth.

Caulfield discovered his passion for these kinds of ethical questions as a student at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. “I was interested in business, not so much in the science of making money, but rather the science of regulating business and getting businesses to do productive, entrepreneurial, positive things,” he said.

Caufield’s research has been published in journals like the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy. His work has been featured in Politico, and he has written op-eds and posts for The Washington Post, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, and the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog.

Caulfield recently collaborated with an undergraduate research assistant who is pursuing a dual degree in philosophy and finance. Their similar interests gave him the opportunity to meld original research with mentoring. “We co-authored a paper, and it’s currently under review at a top journal,” he shared.

While Caulfield says there’s no easy path between publishing an academic article and seeing the ideas applied in the real world, he hopes his work can help influence incremental shifts. “For instance, how do we set up a compliance program? Well, maybe we’ll be informed by this constitutional theory of the firm. Instead of looking at compliance as just a set of contracts that we set up to compromise with stakeholders, what if we thought about it as enacting a value, where we see ethics not as just something we do to protect ourselves from lawsuits, but as something we actually believe in?” he posited. “I hope I’m part of a research ecosystem that’s bending the arc towards justice.”