ABSTRACT:Increasingly, global businesses are confronted with the question of complicity in human rights violations committed by abusive host governments. This contribution specifically looks at silent complicity and the way it challenges conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility. Silent complicity implies that corporations have moral obligations that reach beyond the negative realm of doing no harm. Essentially, it implies that corporations have a moral responsibility to help protect human rights by putting pressure on perpetrating host governments involved in human rights abuses. This (...) is a controversial claim, which this contribution proposes to analyze with a view to understanding and determining the underlying conditions that need to be met in order for moral agents to be said to have such responsibilities in the category of the duty to protect human rights. (shrink)

It is often assumed that conventional ethics will contribute positively to economics and business, but here, this judgment will be examined. The conventional ethics of our time is dominated by altruistic philosophy, which has deep roots in religion. Such an idealistic ‘altruistic ethics’ especially emphasizes helping the least advantaged. This principle is contrasted with a more profane ‘reciprocal ethics.’ This term is used for the principle of mutual advantage central to a number of significant philosophers. This latter principle is compatible (...) with the practical norms constituting the morals of the market, while the former implies major adjustment of behavior and policies. Many ethicists consider their field to be ‘applied ethics,’ bringing the concrete rules and practices of the economic sector closer to honored first principles of philosophy. Is it reasonable to expect an influence by the ideas of altruistic ethics to improve the morals and policies of the economy? The process of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative of the United Nations illustrates a probably crucial connection with altruistic ethics. Is this project, supported by religiously inspired groups, a sound way to treat a serious global problem? The disadvantages of this project are discussed and alternatives with better potential are presented. The article suggests that altruistic ethics is a dubious foundation for constructive morality and that its dominance in contemporary philosophy constitutes a major obstacle to a more open-minded analysis and sound policies. (shrink)

An Aristotelian approach to understanding and teaching business ethics is presented and defended. The newly emerging field of computer ethics is also defined in an Aristotelian fashion, and an argument is made that this new field should be called “information ethics”. It is argued that values have their roots in the life and practices of a community; therefore, morality cannot be taught by training for a special way of reasoning. Transmission of values and norms occurs through socialization — the process (...) by which an individual absorbs not only values but also the whole way of life of his or her community. It follows that business ethics and information ethics can be considered kinds of socialization into a profession: role learning and acquiring a new self-identification. This way of understanding fields of applied ethics is especially important for their proper development in Central-Eastern Europe because of endemic factors which are the result of recent political developments there. (shrink)

Today’s international business environment is complicated by human rights abuses and social and economic repression in variouscountries. This paper introduces controversies with foreign investment in Burma to develop and describe alternative terms of global business engagement in ethically challenging settings. Two forms of engagement—unrestricted and constructive—and two forms of non-engagement—principled and sanctioned—are discussed. All four alternatives are examined for their ethical, social change, andcultural foundations. Additional considerations are posed in respect to constructive engagement, moral leadership by global businessexecutives, needs for (...) model building and evaluative research, and realities in the ethical context of global business. (shrink)

Abstract:Extrapolating from Carroll’s four domains of corporate social responsibility (1979) and Pyramid of CSR (1991), an alternative approach to conceptualizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) is proposed. A three-domain approach is presented in which the three core domains of economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities are depicted in a Venn model framework. The Venn framework yields seven CSR categories resulting from the overlap of the three core domains. Corporate examples are suggested and classified according to the new model, followed by a discussion (...) of limitations and teaching and research implications. (shrink)

Many writers in the field of business ethics seem to have accepted R. Edward Freeman’s argument to the effect that what he calls “the separation thesis,” or the idea that business and morality can be separated in certain ways, should be rejected. In this paper, I discuss how this argument should be understood more exactly, and what position “the separation thesis” refers to. I suggest that there are actually many interpretations (or versions) of the separation thesis going around, ranging from (...) semantic, empirical and reformative to some which are straightforwardly normative. While it is generally agreed that the separation thesis should be rejected, then, there is not as much agreement on what this thesis actually says. I suggest that whether or not we should<br>reject the separation thesis, however, ultimately must depend on how we understand it more exactly—on certain interpretations, the thesis comes out as more or less trivially false, but we should demand more evidence or argument to reject it on certain other interpretations. This result presents a challenge for all those writers who are committed to the rejection of the separation thesis. (shrink)

La Economía del Bien Común (EBC) representa un modelo que, sin llegar a poner en cuestión la libertad de mercado, propone una visión más humana de la economía a través del bien común y la cooperación. Se trata de un modelo global e integral que se está desarrollando especialmente en el campo de la microeconomía. El objetivo de este trabajo es, una vez identificadas las características básicas del modelo del EBC, justificar sus fundamentos teóricos desde el punto de vista organizativo, (...) en particular, desde la teoría de los stakeholders. El Balance del Bien Común, como herramienta que sirve para implementar el modelo de la EBC, utilitza una matriz de doble entrada, que sirve para medir la aportación de las empresas en la consecución de los principios de los derechos humanos a través de su relación con los stakeholders.The Economy of the Common Good ecb represents a model that, without questioning market freedom, proposes a more humane vision of the economy, through the common good and cooperation. It is a global and comprehensive model that is being developed above all in the field of microeconomics. The objective of the work is, after identifying the basic characteristics of the ecb model, to justify its theoretical foundations from the organizational point of view, in particular, from Stakeholders’ Theory. The Balance of the Common Good, as a tool that serves to implement the ecb model, uses a double entry matrix, which serves to measure the contribution of companies to the achievement of human rights principles through their relationship with the stakeholders. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously affected by unethical data (...) mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

This study comparatively examines supervisory reactions of Turkish sales managers to potentially ethical and unethical salesperson behaviors while replicating Hunt and Vasquez-Parraga (1993). Four scenarios representing ethical and unethical conditions of over-stating plant capacity utilization and over-recommending expensive products were presented to the managers. As a result of this comparative study, it is empirically demonstrated that Turkish managers primarily rely on the inherent rightness of a behavior with a focus on the individual (i.e., deontological evaluations) in determining whether a salesperson's (...) behaviors ethical or unethical, but the moral worth of a behavior (i.e., teleological evaluations) also play a role. Turkish managers rely both on the deontological and teleological evaluations in determining their intention to intervene through discipline and rewards. Furthermore, the results are consistent with Hunt and Vitell (1986), Etzioni's moderate deontology and inconsistent with the P-utility theory and ethical egoism. (shrink)

The paper is a response to Richard De George's essay, Theological Ethics and Business Ethics. It defends the possibility of theologically oriented approaches to business ethics by pointing out certain deficiencies in business ethics narrowly based on the premisses of analytic moral philosophy. In particular it argues, in a manner consistent with Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981), that such a program of business ethics is insufficiently critical of its own roots in the social fiction of bureaucratic rationality. After showing how (...) this ideology governs De George's negative judgments on theological approaches to business ethics, the author outlines a program of critical reflection that would draw from the intellectual traditions of both theology and philosophy in order to facilitate a dialogue in business ethics that no longer is captive in the Iron Cage of bureaucratic rationality. (shrink)

Abstract:Bioethicists are sometimes thought to have heightened obligations by virtue of the fact that their professional role addresses ethics or morals. For this reason it has been argued that bioethicists ought to “whistleblow”—that is, publicly expose the wrongful or potentially harmful activities of their employer—more often than do other kinds of employees. This article argues that bioethicists do indeed have a heightened obligation to whistleblow, but not because bioethicists have heightened moral obligations in general. Rather, the special duties of bioethicists (...) to act as whistleblowers are best understood by examining the nature of the ethical dilemma typically encountered by private employees and showing why bioethicists do not encounter this dilemma in the same way. Whistleblowing is usually understood as a moral dilemma involving conflicting duties to two parties: the public and a private employer. However, this article argues that this way of understanding whistleblowing has the implication that professions whose members identify their employer as the public—such as government employees or public servants—cannot consider whistleblowing a moral dilemma, because obligations are ultimately owed to only one party: the public. The article contends that bioethicists—even when privately employed—are similar to government employees in the sense that they do not have obligations to defer to the judgments of those with private interests. Consequently, bioethicists may be considered to have a special duty to whistleblow, although for different reasons than those usually cited. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to think business ethics with the help of philosopher Alain Badiou, focusing on Badiou's critique of ethics and the concepts of ‘event’, ‘truth’ and especially ‘subject’. Based mainly on review articles, I construct an understanding of business ethics (comprising corporate social responsibility and sustainability) and its history as a field of research. With the help of a framework developed from Badiou's work on ethics, I conduct a metacritique of business ethics as being intolerant (exclusion (...) of voices), nihilist (concerned with necessity and economics), reactive (to social movements in the 1960s, arguing that there has always been an ethics of business) and obscure (building upon the atemporal body of knowledge in ethics). Opposed to these tendencies, with the help of the constructive Badiou, I argue that business ethics should move towards the creation of faithful subjects possibly formed by ‘inexistent’ research in the field, as well as concerning itself with closely studying and identifying empirical cases of faithful subject formations and their deviations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in Finnish managers' corporate responsibility perceptions from 1994 to 2004. Following earlier research, the concept of corporate responsibility is operationalised using the stakeholder approach. Empirically, we ask how managers' views on stakeholder issues have changed during the 10-year research period, and how managers' stakeholder orientation compares with their economic orientation. The data were collected using a survey research instrument in the years 1994, 1999 and 2004. The research results show a (...) positive change in managers' corporate responsibility perceptions during this time period. In addition, managers' stakeholder orientation seems to be in balance with their economic orientation. However, the economic context – in terms of both their own company's economic position and the general economic situation – has an effect on managers' stakeholder orientation. (shrink)

This paper criticizes De George's portrayal of theological ethics and its purported inability to make a distinctive contribution to business ethics with the following theses. (1) De George's understanding of the nature of theological ethics is faulty. Consequently his typology of the field is not an adequate description of the range of prevailing approaches. (2) A constructive proposal for religious ethics is offered which takes as its starting points (a) an aspect of human experience (self-transcendence) and (b) the human capacity (...) to reason in order to claim (via Kant, Rahner, Gamwell, and others) that practical reason is religious in nature. As such, a distinctive contribution of religious ethics is its capacity to evaluate business activity in terms of its consistency with our most fundamental, all-inclusive human loyalities and affirmations about the nature of reality itself. (shrink)

There is growing recognition that good ethics can have a positive economic impact on the performance of firms. Many statistics support the premise that ethics, values, integrity and responsibility are required in the modern workplace. For consumer groups and society at large, research has shown that good ethics is good business. This study defines and traces the emergence and evolution within the business literature of the concepts of values, business ethics and corporate social responsibility to illustrate the increased emphasis that (...) has been placed on these issues over time. Two organizations that have successfully dealt with these issues were analyzed to identify the links among values, ethics, and corporate social responsibility as they are incorporated into the culture and management of a firm. This study identified the presence and implementation of values, business ethics, and CSR actions within the two organizations studied. (shrink)

Business ethics as an applied inquiry requires an expanded normative method which allows both philosophical and religious ethical considerations to be employed in resolving complex issues or cases. The proposed foundational normative method provides a comprehensive framework composed of major philosophical and religious ethical theories. An extensive rationale from the current trends in business ethics and metaethical considerations supports the development of this method which is illustrated in several case studies. By using this method, scholars and business persons gain greater (...) certitude about the ethical quality of their deliberations and decision making than what may be achieved with current nonsystematic or nascent normative methods. (shrink)

The employment of foreign workers is one of the most crucial problems today in the domain of work relations. Absorbing workersfrom abroad poses serious questions concerning the moral obligations of the employers as well as the government authorities in the migrantreceiving country. Unfortunately, the moral dilemmas of foreign labor have been largely neglected by business ethics researchers. This paper develops a conceptual framework based on the multinational corporation (MNC) ethical research to help examine the moral obligations of employers and states (...) toward foreign workers, as opposed to citizens. The main argument is that domestic employers, who have the power to affect crucial aspects in the lives of migrant workers, incur obligations to these people and bear moral responsibility for their subsistence. As regards the host country in a universal social order based on the existence of nation-states, the employment of foreign workers poses a genuine ethical dilemma between two valid moral duties: the duty to improve the welfare of nationals and the duty to promote the interests of everyone, regardless of their nationality. (shrink)

The concept of business ethics has continued to remain a major item on the agenda of corporate America for the last twenty years. Regrettably, this longevity of interest has not been matched by equal attention to the pedagogical methods and techniques used to address these issues. The current mode of teaching business ethics generally involves reliance on “war stories,” case studies, andseminars. Today’s dynamic environment creates pressures for higher levels of ethical behavior by business. Many ethical challenges faced by contemporary (...) managers are not easily resolved by existing guidelines, and require managers to expand their scope of analysis in attempting to arrive at satisfactory resolutions. Literature can be an especially alternative source of insights, as authors are able to highlight behaviors that may not be available from traditional sources. Historically, the use of literature in examining business ethics has been focused primarily on novels such as The Jungle, Babbit, and The Great Gatsby. Plays are more useful than novels in attempting to inculcate moral and ethical values since they more sharply address the interactions of characters, and the reader becomes more involved in their situations. The plays selected for analysis, Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, have intense plots and characters and allow the reader to observe a wide range motives, emotions, and traits. This untraditional approach to teaching business ethics enhances the ability to relate to the increasingly complex ethical issues facing the individual and the organization. (shrink)

In this article thinking on corporate social responsibility is compared with the dominant political theory of the market: theneoclassical theory. The comparison shows that thinking on CSR fundamentally collides with that theory. For example, their respectivenormative views on man are incompatible, as are their respective views on the modus operandi of the market. Given that CSR is desirable it follows that a new political theory of the market is needed. This article suggests some initial steps toward developing that new political (...) theory of the market. For example, it defends the proposition that the neoclassical idea of the market as a harmonic sphere must be replaced by the idea of the market as a fragile system. (shrink)

Some critics raise moral objections against corporate social responsibility on account of its supposedly undemocratic nature. Theyargue that it is hard to reconcile democracy with the private discretion that always accompanies the discharge of responsibilities that are not judicially enforceable. There are two ways of constructing this argument: the “perfect-market argument” and the “social-power argument.” This paper demonstrates that the perfect-market argument is untenable and that the social-power argument is sometimes valid. It also asserts that the proponents of the perfect-market (...) argument are mistaken in their assumption that perfect markets are conducive to democracy. There are strong reasons to hold that perfect markets are undesirable from a democratic point of view. A proper conceptualization and differentiation of the relation between “the private and the public” can make this clear. The proponents of the social-power argument sometimes maintain that the democratic deficit can be compensated for by consulting the stakeholdersaffected. Against this, I will argue that the social power argument has nothing to offer affected parties. Still, it will be shown that moderntheory on corporate social responsibility is not well accommodated to the democratic deficit as revealed by the social power argument. (shrink)

We theorize that, in the current development of business ethics, there is a fruitful evolution that dissolves the dichotomy between the normative and behavioral research approaches developed, respectively, by philosophers and social scientists; this approach avoids many of the limitations originated by such distinction by reconnecting their two separate narratives. We call this emerging research model Humanistic Business Ethics (HBE) as it emphasizes the centrality of the human dimension of business and the importance of adopting a richer concept of humanity (...) in business ethics research. We argue that this specific research model in business ethics emerges when scholars combine a pragmatist philosophical approach with some key ideas coming from stakeholder theory, which we summarize and connect. By leveraging collaboration across ethics, economics, psychology, and entrepreneurship, HBE can help business and society scholars undertake fruitful inquiries into the way business works (and should work) at its best. (shrink)

Prior literature on ethical concerns in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has often concluded that many stakeholders, such as workers and communities, have unjustly suffered as a result of takeovers and associated defences and that their rights as stakeholders have been violated. However, very few papers provide any guidance on how to evaluate a merger or acquisition from an ethical standpoint. This study looks at how ethical frameworks could be used to assess the ethical impact of a merger or acquisition and (...) gives practical guidance. It is proposed that decision makers should consider the impact on four stakeholder groups: shareholders, employees, customers and directors. We call the proposed method for doing this Partial Utilitarian analysis. We suggest two possible ways of applying the Partial Utilitarian analysis. One approach could rely on the evidence from a sample of recent deals. For this, empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of large M&As in the United Kingdom in the period 1993–2003. Alternatively, a better approach, requiring considerable management time, requires forecasting of the economic impact on the four groups of stakeholders. The paper shows how to do this. (shrink)

Arguing that the grounding of philosophical ethics is more complex than De George's reference to reason and human experience reflects, and that religious ethics is less doctrinaire and less given to indoctrination than De George suggests, Camenisch maintains that De George has portrayed an artifically wide gap between the two fields. Rejecting De George's typology of religious ethics as unhelpful, Camenisch suggests that the crucial distinction between philosophical and religious/theological ethics is the community or lived nature of the latter. The (...) implications of this dimension of religious ethics for business ethics is briefly explored in relation to the use of cases, the role of the lives of moral exemplars, corporate responsibility, and obligations to future generations, to indicate not that religious ethics generates answers different from those of philosophy, but that it provides a different perspective on some central moral matters. (shrink)

This article begins by showing how recent controversies over the widespread promotion of artificially gene-altered foods are rooted in opposing ethical and ideological worldviews. It then explains how these contrasting worldviews have led to a practical, ethical, and ideological standoff and, finally, suggests the combined use of casuistry and virtue ethics as a way for both sides to move ahead on this pressing issue.

This article argues for the compatibility of casuistry and the business case method. It describes the salient features of casuistryand the case method, shows how the two methods are similar yet different, and suggests how elements of casuistry might benefit theuse of the case method in management education. Toward these ends, it shows how casuistry and the case method are both inductive and practical methods of reasoning focussed on single settings and real-life situations and how both methods stress that real-life (...) decision making is not the exclusive domain of experts. It also shows how casuistry and the case method are not identical processes but have different purposes and emphasize order and problem-resolution differently. In the end, Casuistry and the Business Case Method suggests that, despite their differences, casuistry and the case method might be brought together to benefit business management and the field of business ethics. (shrink)

Business ethics has made important strides over the past decades, but it has also suffered significant failures as witnessed by the long line of business scandals in the past half century. This paper discusses different forms that business ethics has taken in relation to the goal of businesses acting ethically. In the end, it maintains that a major challenge current business ethics faces is the lack of an account of business organizations as they ethically develop and change both individually and (...) systemically within social and political conditions. Even if business ethicists can rationally defend what businesses should be doing, unless we can relate this to how businesses can come to operate in those ways, our normative arguments will lack power, persuasiveness, and effectiveness. Only if we are able to provide this analysis will our normative ethics fulfill the practical task it has taken upon itself. (shrink)

The history of the field of business ethics in the U.S. remains understudied and misunderstood. In this article I begin to remedy this oversight about the past, and I suggest how it can be beneficial in the present. Using both published and unpublished primary sources, I argue that the business ethics field emerged in the early twentieth century, against the backdrop of the establishment of business schools in major universities. I bring to light four important developments: business ethics lectures at (...) the University of California and Yale University, Leon Marshall’s curriculum at the College of Commerce of the University of Chicago, and the William A. Vawter Foundation on Business Ethics at Northwestern University. Then, I consider the payoffs of my historical account for business ethics theory, pedagogy, and practice. Specifically, I present four implications of my account under these headings: business ethics as a public problem; the place of ethics in business schools; historicizing business ethics; and historical self-knowledge. (shrink)

The concepts of 'ethical' and 'socially responsible' investment (SRI) have become increasingly popular in recent years and funds which offer this kind of investment have attracted many individual inve... merstors. The present book addresses the issue of 'How ought one to invest?' by critically engaging with the ideas of the proponents of this movement about what makes 'ethical' investing ethical. The standard suggestion that ethical investing simply consists in refraining from investing in certain 'morally unacceptable companies' is criticised for being (...) both too rigid (often resting on absolute moral rules which lead to an austere conclusion) and too ineffective for individual investors (investors who after all control only a small part of the investment universe). Furthermore, the idea that ethical investing could consist in engaging more actively with the companies one invests in, in order to make them change their ways and become more socially responsible, is criticised for being just as ineffective for individual investors. Some more radical alternatives are elaborated on and defended - for instance, the suggestion that investors should make as much money from their investments as possible and then donate the proceeds to socially worthwhile charities. From similar suggestions, the common idea that there is no conflict between morality and profitability, or that genuinely ethical investing can be just as profitable as mainstream investing, is criticised for being too naïve. Making a difference may indeed require personal sacrifice of investors, but it is argued that the needs of the possible recipients of philanthropy are morally more important than the luxury of investment returns. (shrink)