Relying heavily on Thomas Dunfee's work, this article conducts an in-depth analysis of the relationship between law and business ethics in the context of corporate information security. It debunks the two dominant arguments against corporate investment in information security and explains why socially responsible corporate conduct necessitates strong information security practices. This article argues that companies have ethical obligations to improve information security arising out of a duty to avoid knowingly causing harm to others and, potentially, a duty to exercise (...) unique capabilities for the greater social good and to buttress stable functioning of social institutions. (shrink)

Business leaders frequently face dilemmas, circumstances where whatever course of action they choose, something of important value will be offended. How can an organisation prepare its decision makers for such situations? This article presents a pedagogical approach to dilemma training for business leaders and managers. It has evolved through ten years of experience with human resource development, where ethics has been an integral part of programs designed to help individuals to become excellent in their professional roles. The core element in (...) our approach is The Navigation Wheel, a figure used to keep track of relevant decision factors. Feedback from participants indicates that dilemma training has helped them to recognise the ethical dimension of leadership. They respond that the tools and concepts are highly relevant in relation to the challenges that occur in the working environment they return to after leadership training. (shrink)

Cause-related marketing has risen to become a popular strategy to increase business value through profit-motivated giving. Despite the growing number of articles published in the last decade, no comprehensive analysis of the most discussed constructs of cause-related marketing is available. This paper uses an advanced Text Mining methodology to conduct a comprehensive analysis of 246 articles published in 40 different journals between 1988 and 2013 on the subject of cause-related marketing. Text Mining also allows quantitative analyses to be performed on (...) the literature. For instance, it is shown that the most prominent long-term topics discussed since 1988 on the subject are “brand-cause fit”, “law and Ethics”, and “corporate and social identification”, while the most actively discussed topic presently is “sectors raising social taboos and moral debates”. The paper has two goals: first, it introduces the technique of CTM to the Marketing area, illustrating how Text Mining may guide, simplify, and enhance review processes while providing objective building blocks to be used in a review; second, it applies CTM to the C-RM field, uncovering and summarizing the most discussed topics. Mining text, however, is not aimed at replacing all subjective decisions that must be taken as part of literature review methodologies. (shrink)

In business ethics journals, Kant’s ethics is often portrayed as overly formalistic, devoid of substantial content, and without regard for the consequences of actions or questions of character. Hence, virtue ethicists ride happily to the rescue, offering to replace or complement Kant’s theory with their own. Before such efforts are undertaken, however, one should recognize that Kant himself wrote a “virtue theory” (Tugendlehre), wherein he discussed the questions of character as well as the teleological nature of human action. Numerous Kant (...) scholars argue that Kant already erected precisely the kind of integrative moral architecture that some of his modern interpreters (while aiming to supersede him) wish to construct. For business ethics, this divergence of scholarly opinion is of crucial importance. It shows first that the standard portrayals of Kant’s ethics in business ethics textbooks—as rigidly deontological, narrowly individualistic, and hence unsuitable for the specific demands of corporate agency—might have to be revised. Second, discussions in the business ethics literature on stakeholder-engagement and managerial decision-making likewise stand to gain from a more nuanced picture of Kant’s moral philosophy. Third, a reassessment of Kant’s ethics with regard to questions of personal character and moral sentiments might also lead to a more favorable view of the relevance of his ethics for managerial practice. Last, but not least, the many current attempts to reconcile Kant’s freedom-oriented philosophy with virtue theories stand to benefit considerably from a better understanding of how Kant himself conceived of one such synthesis between the formal and substantial aspects of morality. This, ultimately, could lead to an important overlapping consensus in the academic literature as to the role and relevance of virtuous conduct in business. (shrink)

In attempting to improve ethical decision-making in business organizations, researchers have developed models of ethical decision-making processes. Most of these models do not include a role for law in ethical decision-making, or if law is mentioned, it is set as a boundary constraint, exogenous to the decision process. However, many decision models in business ethics are based on cognitive moral development theory, in which the law is thought to be the external referent of individuals at the level of cognitive development (...) that most people have achieved. Other theoretical bases of ethical decision models, social learning, and experientialism, also imply a role for law that is rarely made explicit. Law is a more important aspect of ethical decision-process models than it appears to be in the models. This paper will derive explicit roles for the law from the cognition, experientialism, and social learning theories that are used to build ethical decision-making models for business behavior. (shrink)

Rent seeking by lobbying for government favors is generally thought to be wasteful. In view of this wastefulness, it is puzzling that rent seeking by corporations has not been criticized as a failure to be socially responsible or even as an unethical business practice. This article examines the compatibility of rent seeking with corporate social responsibility by utilizing Thomas Dunfee's idea of a marketplace with morality. This idea is useful for solving this puzzle because in considering whether rent seeking is (...) compatible with corporate social responsibility, it is necessary, first, to define rent seeking, which this article argues is a normative concept, and, second, to find some principled way of identifying rent-seeking behavior. It also solves the puzzle about rent seeking by revealing that the concept of rent seeking itself is of little use in determining whether certain conduct is or is not socially responsible since rent seeking activity cannot be identified without first evaluating which activity is rent seeking. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly becoming a popular business concept in developed economies. As typical of other business concepts, it is on its way to globalization through practices and structures of the globalized capitalist world order, typified in Multinational Corporations (MNCs). However, CSR often sits uncomfortably in this capitalist world order, as MNCs are often challenged by the global reach of their supply chains and the possible irresponsible practices inherent along these chains. The possibility of irresponsible practices puts global (...) firms under pressure to protect their brands even if it means assuming responsibilities for the practices of their suppliers. Pressure groups understand this burden on firms and try to take advantage of the situation. This article seeks to challenge the often taken-for-granted-assumption that firms should be accountable for the practices of their suppliers by espousing the moral (and sometimes legal) underpinnings of the concept of responsibility. Except where corporate control and or corporate grouping exist, it identifies the use of power as a critical factor to be considered in allocating responsibility in firm-supplier relationship; and suggests that the more powerful in this relationship has a responsibility to exert some moral influence on the weaker party. The article highlights the use of code of conducts, corporate culture, anti-pressure group campaigns, personnel training and value reorientation as possible sources of wielding positive moral influence along supply chains. (shrink)