Virtue as a Benchmark for Spirituality in Business

Business people often consider spirituality a means of increasing integrity, motivation and job satisfaction. Yet certain spiritualities are superficial and unstable. Religion gives depth and duration to a spirituality, but may also sew divisiveness. A spirituality's ability to develop good moral habits provides a positive test of the "appropriateness" of that spirituality for business. Many successful business executives demonstrate a spirituality that does develop good moral habits.     

Ethics in Business: Answering the Call

What might happen if business leaders across the globe viewed their work as a sacred calling in a religious sense? Might not the world be a far better place? This paper is an effort to stimulate debate and discussion on this topic. Concepts addressed include: (a) ethics in business, (b) ethical standards in business settings, (c) the role of law, (d) levels of corporate responsibility, (e) the role of religion in business ethics, (f) the idea of business as a calling in a religious sense, (g) the elements of modern corporate culture, (h) creating an ethical corporate culture, (i) demonstrating corporate social responsibility, and (j) providing servant leadership. The introduction to the paper shows how these concepts interrelate; its conclusion offers a challenge to business leaders to answer their call to business in the truest sense.     

Business Should Be Its Own Therapist: Observing the "Governance Ethics" of Taiwanese Enterprises

Taiwanese enterprises generally display a tacit acceptance and practice of globally-recognized business ethics such as the respect of human rights. Yet some Taiwanese business supervisors subscribe instead to a philosophy of leadership, dubbed "pseudo-harmony", which actively seeks to evade responsibility and any conflict of interest with profitability. Meanwhile other Taiwanese entrepreneurs are even less enlightened, dictatorially upholding self-serving regimes which operate on a philosophy which is euphemistically referred to as "householder management".These attitudes result in the sub-optimal development of "organizational democratization" within Taiwanese enterprises and hi-light the fragility of "ethical leadership" in Taiwan. There is a strong argument, therefore, that Taiwanese business needs to become both its own analyst and therapist if it is to enhance its "governance ethics". Only this way can the nation's enterprises evolve their ethical responsibilities to stakeholders and sustain their competitiveness in a global market that increasingly demands an adherence to ethical standards.     

Virtue Theory as a Dynamic Theory of Business

This paper develops a meta-theory of business based on virtue theory which links the concept of virtues, the common good, and the dynamic economy into a unifying and comprehensive theory of business. Traditional theories and models of business have outlived their usefulness as they are unable to adequately explain social reality. Virtue theory shows firms that pursue ethically-driven strategies can realise a greater profit potential than those firms who currently use profit-driven strategies. The theory expounds that the business of business is ethical business and that the crises that business and society face today are crises of leadership and ethics. The issues of leadership and corporate social responsibility are discussed in the context of the proposed theory.     

Business and Marketing Ethics as Professional Ethics. Concepts, Approaches and Typologies

Marketing ethics is normally marketed as a sub-specialization of business ethics. In this paper, marketing ethics serves as an umbrella term for advertising, PR and sales ethics and as an example of professional ethics. To structure the paper, four approaches are distinguished, with a focus on typical professional conflicts, codes, roles or climates respectively. Since the moral climate approachis more inclusive than the other approaches, the last part of the paper deals mainly with moral climates, within the above-mentioned marketing sub-professions.     

The Effects of Commitment to Moral Self-improvement and Religiosity on Ethics of Business Students

Using survey methodology we examined the relationships between commitment to moral self-improvement (CMSI), religiosity, ethical problem recognition, and behavioral intentions in a sample of 242 business students. Results of the study suggest that CMSI predicts ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Our findings also suggest that CMSI is positively related to religiosity. The study provides some evidence of CMSI being a mediator in the influence of religiosity on ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Compared to religiosity, CMSI turned out to be a better predictor of perceived importance of ethics, ethical problem recognition, and ethical behavioral intentions. The results of the study have implications for increasing understanding of ethical decision-making, future studies of business ethics, and business ethics education.     

Contents of Codes of Ethics of Professional Business Organizations in the United States

This paper reports an analysis of the content of the codes of ethics of 15 professional business organizations in the United States, representing the broad range of disciplines found in business. The analysis was conducted to identify common ethical issues faced by business professionals. It was also structured to highlight ethical issues that are either unique to or of particular importance for business professionals. No attempt is made to make value judgments about either the codes of ethics studied or of their content. General ethical values identified include honesty and integrity, general legal compliance, discreditable or harmful acts, and obligations related to social values. More business-specific issues include confidentiality, responsibilities to employers/clients, obligations to the profession, independence and objectivity, and business-specific legal and technical compliance issues.     

Business Ethics Index: Measuring Consumer Sentiments Toward Business Ethical Practices

The present study describes the development of an ongoing and systematic index to measure consumers’ sentiments towards business ethical practices. The Business Ethics Index (BEI) is based on the well established measurements of consumer sentiments, namely the ICS (Index of Consumer Sentiment) and CBCCI (Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index). The BEI is comprised of 4 measurements representing the dimensions of “personal-vicarious” and “past-future.” Data from 503 telephone interviews were used to calculate a BEI of 107. This indicates an overall positive consumer sentiment towards the ethical behavior of business. Future calculations of the BEI are planned which will allow for the estimation of the latent dynamics of trends in consumer sentiments toward American business ethics.     

Work-Family Conflict: A Virtue Ethics Analysis

Work-family conflict has been examined quite often in human resources management and industrial/organizational psychology literature. Numerous statistics show that the magnitude of this employment issue will continue to grow. As employees attempt to balance work demands and family responsibilities, organizations will have to decide to what extent they will go to minimize this conflict. Research has identified numerous negative consequences of work-family stressors for organizations, for employees and for employees' families. There are however many options to reduce this strain, each with advantages and disadvantages. An ethical analysis, from a virtue ethics perspective, is applied to this timely issue to present an alternative view in addressing this critical business decision. In addition, a strong connection between the virtue ethics analysis and a well-known management theory is given to provide a foundation for managerial implications for resolving work-family conflict.     

Ethics in Global Business and in a Plural Society

The contemporary confluence of globalization and ethical pluralism is at the origin of many ethical challenges that confront business nowadays, both in practice and in theory. One of the challenges arising from the development of globalization has to do with respect for cultural diversity. It is often said that the success of economic globalization tends towards social and cultural homogeneity. To the extent that cultural diversity is usually seen as a valuable reality, that global trend seems to contradict our efforts to respect ethical pluralism, both personal and cultural, within society. In this paper I argue that (a) ethical minimalism, despite its emphasis on tolerance and justice, does not take pluralism seriously into account in present-day society, and (b) ethical minimalism is not suited to balancing the homogenizing trend of globalization. Certainly ethical norms are necessary, but by no means are they sufficient in themselves to encourage either justice or tolerance; nor are they sufficient to inspire and encourage good practices and sound regulations. Instead, virtue-based ethics has the capacity of inspiring and encouraging good practices. Particularly, virtue-based ethics is able to inspire a serious dialogue about ethical and legal issues both in the public arena and within organizations.     

Ethical Character and Virtue of Organizations: An Empirical Assessment and Strategic Implications

Virtue ethics has often been regarded as complementary or laissez-faire ethics in solving business problems. This paper seeks conceptual and methodological improvements by developing a virtue character scale that will enable assessment of the link between organizational level virtue and organizational performance, financial or non-financial. Based upon three theoretical assumptions, multiple studies were conducted; the content analysis of 158 Fortune Global 500 firms ethical values and a survey of 2548 customers and employees. Six dimensions of organizational virtue (Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, Courage, Conscientiousness and Zeal) are identified through confirmatory factor analysis, and validated against satisfaction measure. Strategic implications of virtue characters are discussed.     

Exploring the Role Performance of Corporate Ethics Officers

Organizations continue to show renewed focus on managing their ethics programs by developing organizational infrastructures to support their ethics implementation efforts. An important part of this process has been the creation of an ethics officer position. Whether individuals appointed to the position are successful in the role or not may depend on a number of factors. This study presents a suggested framework for their effectiveness. The framework includes a focus on personal, organizational and situational factors to predict performance in the role. The study examines the complex nature of the role. These include task complexity, low task visibility, role conflict, and role ambiguity. Personal, organizational and situational factors that can serve as buffers against the complexities associated with the role are presented. The study suggests that individuals with certain competencies and orientations may be better suitable for the ethics position, and firms need to consider key organizational and situational issues critical to the performance of an ethics officer. The research and practice implications of the study are given.     

Leadership, Ethics and Responsibility to the Other

Of recent time, there has been a proliferation of concerns with ethical leadership within corporate business not least because of the numerous scandals at Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, and two major Irish banks – Allied Irish Bank (AIB) and National Irish Bank (NIB). These have not only threatened the position of many senior corporate managers but also the financial survival of some of the companies over which they preside. Some authors have attributed these scandals to the pre-eminence of a focus on increasing shareholder value in Western business schools and/or to their failure to inculcate ethical standards. In this paper, we challenge these accounts and the aetiological view of knowledge from which they derive but are grateful for the consensus that they convey regarding the importance of business ethics. The paper focuses on different approaches to ethical leadership concluding with a view that some hybrid of MacIntyre’s virtue ethics and Levinas’s ethics of responsibility may serve as an inspiration for both educators and practitioners. Dr. David Knights is a Professor of Organisational Analysis in the School of Economic and Management Studies at Keele University. He previously held chairs in Manchester, Nottingham and Exeter Universities. He is a founding and continuing editor of the journal Gender, Work and Organisation and his most recent books include: Management Lives, Sage, 1999 (with H. Willmott) and Organization and Innovation, McGraw-Hill, 2003 (with D. McCabe). Majella O’Leary is a Lecturer in Management at the University of Exeter. Her research interests include corporate scandals, ethical leadership, disaster sensemaking, and organizational storytelling. Majella’s most recent publications have appeared in Human Relations and European Journal of Business Ethics.     

Toward a Model for International Business Ethics

This paper briefly examines the topic of business ethics and attempts to suggest a code of ethics for multinational firms. While most companies have basic policies on employee integrity, confidentiality and sexual harassment, relatively few have established policies regarding bribery, exploitive child labor, human rights violations and other issues they may encounter in the global market place (Drake, 1998). Until recently, very few companies had truly global operations. Consequently little attention was paid to the issue of ethical guidelines in a global context. Recent changes in international markets have led to an explosion of corporations with global operations, and the need for a global code of ethics has grown commensurately. In this paper we explore the issue of global business ethics and attempt to provide a framework for future discussion. We also examine some of the unique difficulties surrounding the development of any set of global business standards. Key among these difficulties is the issue of competing ethical values in home and host countries.     

How Entrepreneurs Deal with Ethical Challenges – An Application of the Business Ethics Synergy Star Technique

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine “what is right”. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur’s personal world-view. Dr. David Robinson lectures in Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics at Queensland University of Technology and Bond University in Australia and is Visiting Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Himself an entrepreneur and director of companies with varied business interests, he holds a Master of Science from Brunel University, London, an MBA from Newport University, California and a Ph.D. from Rhodes University, South Africa. Dave is a past surfing and lifesaving champion and is known around the world as ‘Dr. Dave - the Surfing Professor’. Per Davidsson is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of Research at Queensland University of Technology, Australia and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Jonkoping International Business School in Sweden. Hennie van der Mescht is Associate Professor and Head of the Education Department at Rhodes University, South Africa. Philip Court is Associate Professor and Head of the Management Department at Rhodes University, South Africa.     

Toward a Model of Cross-Cultural Business Ethics: The Impact of Individualism and Collectivism on the Ethical Decision-Making Process

In this paper, we explore the impact of individualism and collectivism on three basic aspects of ethical decision making – the perception of moral problems, moral reasoning, and behavior. We argue that the inclusion of business practices within the moral domain by the individual depends partly upon individualism and collectivism. We also propose a pluralistic approach to post-conventional moral judgment that includes developmental paths appropriate for individualist and collectivist cultures. Finally, we argue that the link between moral judgment and behavior is related to individualism and collectivism.

Managing Cross Cultural Business Ethics

The Trompenaars database (1993) updated with Hampden-Turner (1998) has been assembled to help managers structure their cross cultural experiences in order to develop their competence for doing business and managing across the world. The database comprises more than 50,000 cases from over 100 countries and is one of the world's richest sources of social constructs. Woolliams and Trompenaars (1998) review the analysis undertaken by the authors in the last five years to develop the methodological approach underpinning the work. Recently Trompenaars with Hampden-Turner (Trompenaars and Woolliams, 1999) have extended the concepts into a new model on dilemma reconciliation of cultural differences. This paper reviews these latest updates in relation to dilemmas of cross-cultural business ethics. The paper asserts that knowledge in relation to business ethics is culturally specific; and that ethnocentrism is not easy to avoid. Too great an emphasis on rational-analytic conceptions of reality may mean that syntheses, emotion, and intuition, are not adequately developed. This presents implications for doing business and managing across cultures and for resolving ethical dilemmas.     

Towards Authenticity: A Sartrean Perspective on Business Ethics

Taking a Sartrean existentialist viewpoint towards business ethics, in particular, concerning the question of the nature of businesspersons’ moral character, provides for a dramatically distinct set of reflections from those afforded by the received view on character, namely that of Aristotelian-based virtue ethics. Insofar as Sartre’s philosophy places human freedom at center stage, I argue that the authenticity with which a businessperson approaches moral situations depends on the degree of consciousness he or she has of the various choices at stake. Finally, I consider some practical changes in business ethics education, managerial decision-making, and business organizations that Sartrean reflections might prompt.     

Transition Ethics: A Comparison of Ukrainian and United States Business Professionals

This article compares the ethical attitudes of Ukrainian business professionals with those of United States business professionals. A widely used survey instrument consisting of 16 hypothetical situations involving ethical dilemmas was employed to gather information on ethical attitudes in the two countries. On 13 of 16 vignettes, Ukrainian respondents demonstrated less stringent ethical attitudes than did their United States counterparts. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed, with primary emphasis on the transition from one economic system to another that is underway in Ukraine. Comments from Ukrainian respondents are presented so as to give an indication of the thought processes behind the questionnaire responses. Olena Vynoslavska is Head of Psychology and Pedagogics Chair at the National Technical University of Ukraine, Kyiv. She has been a research scholar under the sponsorship of the International Research and Educational Exchange program of the United States Department of State at Baylor University. Her research has included international comparative studies of entrepreneurship and management techniques. Joseph A. McKinney is Ben H. Williams Professor of International Economics at Baylor University. He was previously on the faculty of the University of Virginia, and has served as visiting professor or research scholar to universities in Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Canada. His research interests include business ethics, international trade policy, and regional economic integration. Carlos W. Moore is the Edwin W. Streetman Professor of Marketing at Baylor University, where he has been on the faculty for more than 30 years. His research interests include business ethics, marketing and advertising evaluation, and small business strategies. He has done consulting on bank marketing and new product development. Justin G. Longenecker is Emeritus Professor of Management at Baylor University. His research interests include business ethics, entrepreneurship, and family business. He is co-author of the leading text on small business management, and is the author of scholarly articles on various aspects of business management.     

The Untapped Relevance of Moral Development Theory in the Study of Business Ethics

The construct of cognitive moral development seemingly has powerful practical relevance in many areas of life. Nonetheless, moral reasoning seems of marginal relevance at best in the context of business ethics. Simply put, moral reasoning measurement indices are often only weakly related to many other apparently pertinent variables, and such findings cast doubt upon the construct validity of cognitive moral development. Many such unexpectedly weak relationships, however, may stem from two largely unrecognized methodological artifacts. The first artifact is an almost total reliance on the P index of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) designed to assess moral development even when this index may be inappropriate in a particular context. A second artifact that seems particularly salient in the context of attitudes toward authority involves a not always appropriate reliance on samples that include respondents whose moral reasoning is uncoupled from their action choices. These artifacts may restrict the amount of variance explained in observed relationships, and thus constrain the potential for moral reasoning to understand and explain behavior and attitudes relevant in the context of business ethics. Researchers are urged to use DIT D scores (in addition to P scores) in specific situations, and to examine relationships among high DIT U scorers whose moral reasoning is tightly coupled with their action choices. The application of these guidelines may have profound implications for advancing our fundamental understanding of moral reasoning, and of increasing its relevance to business ethics.