Aligning Human and Animal Stewardship for Ethical Guide Lights in Corporate Behaviour Dynamics

This chapter proposes an ethical realignment of how animal wellbeing is perceived and stewarded with resonance for how we treat each other as humans. All animals (people included) comprise the ecological environment; thus, the ethics of interrelationships between living beings should become guide lights to improved behaviour dynamics in organisations. Systematised conceptual mapping of the literature enables the exploration of the research question, “What facets of animal stewardship as perceptual and environmental signifiers can be reframed for improved understanding of ethical corporate behaviour dynamics?” Findings lead to five ethical guide lights and two conceptual maps that structurally reformulate and integrate corporate relational dynamics through perceptual and environmental signifiers of wellbeing. Being respectful and kind to animals can be an object lesson for how managers in organisations should be similarly inclined to staff over whom they have power. Corporate executives will find guidance to understand what it means to be a steward, avoid attitudes of moral superiority, put kindness towards others at the core, and avoid thinking of species of living creatures being different from oneself. Environmental ethics reformulated by stewardship approaches are crucial for benevolent corporate behaviour during policy formation, decision-making, communication, and action taking.