A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Ethical Dimensions of Alcohol and Tobacco Sports Sponsorships

While the sport industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar international business with unique ethical concerns, there is little empirical research examining the ethics involved in sport sponsorships, especially sponsorship of alcohol and tobacco brands. This study investigates the potential influence of culture and gender on future practitioners' willingness to work in the tobacco and alcohol sport sponsorship areas. The nature of the relationship between sports, alcohol and tobacco is reviewed, along with past research on variables noted to influence ethical decision making. Three hypotheses are investigated for differences between American and Australian students. A cultural difference in ethical perceptions is supported, while gender differences are not significant. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with the study's limitations and future directions for ethics research in sport marketing.     

Ethical Business and Investment: A Model for Business and Society

Two key questions lie at the heart of the business challenge for business ethics: is it possible for business and investors to do well while doing good; and if so, how can this be achieved? This paper adopts an international investment perspective to address these questions. It demonstrates that it is possible for business and investors to achieve a triple bottom line of environmental, social and financial performance. A new integrated model of Ethical Business including an Ethical Scorecard performance measurement technology is presented based on international ethical investment criteria and case studies of businesses rated highly by ethical investors. Ethical Performance Scores are presented for these businesses and New Zealand business. Examples from New Zealand are presented to illustrate the Ethical Scorecard and ethical business practice. The model and scoring system provide a basis for international benchmarking of ethical business to assist investors, managers and researchers.     

Economic criteria versus ethical criteria toward resolving a basic dilemma in business

Today's headlines suggest that economic criteria alone is the basis for business decision-making. This paper argues that while profitability is a legitimate end of business, it must be moderated by ethical considerations. But can business be both successfuland ethical? Practical examples highlight individuals who chose profitability over ethical responsibility and those who chose and continue to choose both. The authors propose that there is an ethical person profile. Corporate managers can resolve the profits vs ethics dilemma by modeling ethical behavior.     

A Framework for Teaching Business Ethics

What ethical framework should be used as a basis for teaching business ethics? Should business ethics be taught by ethicists in a separate course, by business faculty in business courses, or perhaps by both? These are some of the issues this paper will address. The paper begins with a review of the literature concerning approaches to teaching business ethics. Next, some ethical frameworks for teaching business ethics are considered. Finally, the paper proposes that students should apply their own personal values to business ethical issues in the classroom, thus providing future business leaders with a process for resolving ethical dilemmas.     

Circles within a Circle: The Condition for the Possibility of Ethical Business Institutions Within a Market System

How can a business institution function as an ethical institution within a wider system if the context of the wider system is inherently unethical? If the primary goal of an institution, no matter how ethical it sets out to be, is to function successfully within a market system, how can it reconcile making a profit and keeping its ethical goals intact? While it has been argued that some ethical businesses do exist, e.g., Johnson and Johnson, the argument I would like to put forth is that no matter how ethical a business institution is, or how ethical its goals are, its capacity to act in an ethical manner is restricted by the wider system in which it must operate, the market system. Unless there is a fundamental change in the notion of the market system itself, the capacity for individual businesses to act in an ethical manner will always be restricted. My argument is divided into two parts. The first part is to show the inherent bias towards unethical outcomes that is inherent in the market system. The second part is to suggest how to reorient the general economic framework in order to make ethical institutions more possible. The question then becomes, how to define economic behavior in terms other than competition for profit.     

Teaching business ethics: Questioning the assumptions,seeking new directions

An examination of leading textbooks suggests the predominance of a principle-based model in the teaching of business ethics. The model assumes that by teaching students the rudiments of ethical reasoning and ethical theory, we can hope to create rational, independent, autonomous managers who will apply such theory to the many quandary situations of the corporate world. This paper challenges these assumptions by asking the following questions: 1. Is the acquisition of principle-based ethical theory unproblematic? 2. What is the transferability of classroom learning to the business context? 3. Is it appropriate to consider complementary models in the teaching of business ethics? The last question is approached from the perspective of virtues-based ethics, from the insights of feminist ethics, and from a culturally grounded orientation to moral values and norms.     

How Strong are the Ethical Preferences of Senior Business Executives?

How do senior business executives rank their preferences for various ethical principles? And how strongly do the executives believe in these principles? Also, how do these preference rankings relate to the way the executives see the future (wherein business decisions play out)? Research on these questions may provide us with an appreciation of the complexities of ethical behavior in management beyond the traditional issues concerning ethical decision-making in business. Based on a survey of 585 vice presidents of U.S. businesses it was found that: (1) there is a distinct set of principles of ethical conduct that is considered favorable as opposed to another set considered unfavorable among a comprehensive list of 14 ethical principles; (2) the executives believed overwhelmingly that their own individual ethical preferences are better than those of other executives; (3) the strength of their preferences for ethical principles is associated with whether the executives are relatively near-future oriented or more distant-future oriented; and (4), there are very few significant differences in terms of gender, age, education level, private/public education, prestigious/other schools, business/non-business academic backgrounds, and length of job experience. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Professional Ethics and The Culture of Trust

The cause of ethical failure in organisations often can be traced to their organisational culture and the failure on the part of the leadership to actively promote ethical ideals and practices. This is true of all types of organisations, including the professions, which in recent years have experienced ongoing ethical problems. The questions naturally arise: what sort of professional culture promotes ethical behaviour? How can it be implemented by a profession and engendered in the individual professional? The answers to these questions are of interest to business ethicists since the causes of ethical problems in business are often the same and the professions, as ethically challenged organisations, make useful and informative analogues for the measures to be adopted or avoided when the attempt is made to raise the ethical standards of business. Given this focus on the professions, it will be argued that the usual, direct attempts to control unethical behaviour by using codes of ethics, legislation and self-regulatory regimes, are not successful. The answer, it will be argued, lies in using an enforced self-regulation model that aims for ethics indirectly. Such a strategy seeks to develop a goal-orientated professional culture which is actively promoted by the leadership of the profession as well as the members. Specifically, the culture is one that seeks to promote trust in the profession and trustworthiness as a virtue exemplified in each individual. It will be argued that in order to develop a professional culture that cultivates trust a profession will need to develop certain institutions, programs and structures within the profession. I conclude by setting out a model of these trust-cultivating structures.     

Common Thread: The Impact of Mission on Ethical Business Culture. A Case Study

What is the impact of mission on ethical business culture? This question was analyzed through a qualitative case study of a large nonprofit organization in the human services industry with a solid history of ethical business practices and consistent use of a values-based decision-making model. This research explored ethical decision making, ethical business culture, and congruence between enacted and espoused institutional values. Institutional values were identified, and the following pair of research questions was examined: To what extent were incongruent values found between espoused and enacted values? To what extent did incongruent values impact the ethical business culture? Incongruent enacted values were present in the culture, but negative impact was diminished by a larger number of congruent enacted values. Additional findings revealed that an intense commitment to the mission by all employees was the common thread that wound throughout the organization’s ethical business culture and essentially abrogated the undesirable effects of incongruent and negative values.     

Ethical theory in business ethics: A critical assessment

How is ethical theory used in contemporary teaching in business ethics? To answer this question, we undertook a survey of twenty-five of the leading business ethics texts. Our purpose was to examine the ways in which normative moral theory is introduced and applied to cases and issues. We focused especially on the authors' views of the conflicts and tensions posed by basic theoretical debates. How can these theories be made useful if fundamental tensions are acknowledged? Our analysis resulted in a typology, presented here, of the ways in which normative theory, and the difficulties within it, are handled in business ethics texts. We conclude that there is a serious lack of clarity about how to apply the theories to cases and a persistent unwillingness to grapple with tensions between theories of ethical reasoning. These deficiencies hamper teaching and ethical decision-making.     

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.     

On Being a Consultant in Business Ethics

What does it take to be a consultant in business ethics? Is the role of the ethical consultant like that of an engineer, a playwright or an interpreter? And where are the women consultants? The author is a scientific researcher in Ethics at Nijenrode, The Netherlands School of Business.     

The differential perception of accountants to Maccoby's head/heart traits

We in the accounting profession have long shown an interest in presenting an ethical image. But are accountants more ethical than others in the business world? In order to answer that question, a survey was mailed to 250 lower-level accounting professionals to determine their perceptions of the importance of nineteen head and heart trait items first identified by Maccoby. The results, based on 134 replies, indicate that accountants have a higher perception of the importance of the heart traits that have been associated with ethical inclinations than both managers and business students surveyed previously. However, in that head trait items still dominate in terms of importance, if accountants are more ethical, it is not to an overwhelming degree.     

A Model for Ethical Decision Making in Business: Reasoning, Intuition, and Rational Moral Principles

How do business leaders make ethical decisions? Given the significant and wide-spread impact of business people??s decisions on multiple constituents (e.g., customers, employees, shareholders, competitors, and suppliers), how they make decisions matters. Unethical decisions harm the decision makers themselves as well as others, whereas ethical decisions have the opposite effect. Based on data from a study on strategic decision making by 16 effective chief executive officers (and three not-so-effective ones as contrast), I propose a model for ethical decision making in business in which reasoning (conscious processing) and intuition (subconscious processing) interact through forming, recalling, and applying moral principles necessary for long-term success in business. Following the CEOs in the study, I employ a relatively new theory, rational egoism, as the substantive content of the model and argue it to be consistent with the requirements of long-term business success. Besides explaining the processes of forming and applying principles (integration by essentials and spiraling), I briefly describe rational egoism and illustrate the model with a contemporary moral dilemma of downsizing. I conclude with implications for further research and ethical decision making in business.     

Emotion As Well As Reason: Getting Students Beyond "Interpersonal Accountability"

The paper notes the recent spread of business ethics courses in American higher education, observing that teachers trained in economics have not readily incorporated ethical notions or theory into regular courses, such as finance, management, accounting, and marketing. The presumed ethically neutral, value-free approach of economists, who dominate business courses, is increasingly inadequate to meet the needs of business managers – or of business students. Technological and political changes, creating an interdependent environment within which managers operate, have eroded older ethics based on tradition and common backgrounds. They have also raised ethical issues of new orders of complexity. With corporate business managers finding ethical concerns more pressing matters than do many teachers, the paper offers some tentative answers to three questions about how to interest business students in ethical issues: What Approach to Business Ethics Gets student's Attention? What Is the Value of Simulations and Games? What Can Be Said About the Business System And Its Values? The answer to the first question is simulations and games. Case method analysis is serviceable, engaging students' intellect, but all too often without emotional involvement or self-revelation. Experiential learning through class-room games accomplish both engagement and involvement in ways that are exceedingly helpful to business students, who have had "less occasion for critical reflection on self and world than have others of their age." The answer to the second question is: They engage the whole student, stimulating the player to examine the source of her ethical strengths and the reasons for ethical lapses. Generating emotional involvement the games leverage and enhance reasoning, allowing students to learn more about their own values and question their own behavior. The answer to the third question is: A socially justifiable (community-legitimated) competitive market system requires of its managerial participants an emotionally informed response – as well as a rational analysis and use of business techniques. Business operates with enhanced effectiveness efficiency at appropriate levels of such virtues as loyalty, trustworthiness and cooperativeness; they ensure externality benefits as well as promote justice for its own ultimate social justification.     

The real estate code of ethics: Viable or vaporous?

Several recent articles in the field of ethics and business have raised questions concerning the viability of professional ethical codes. Are such codes serious, effective tools for promoting and enforcing an ethical standard of behavior? Or do the codes more closely resemble clever, elaborate public-relation ploys? The purpose of this paper is to analyze the content, role and efficacy of one such ethical code, namely, The Code of Ethics of the National Association of Realtors. The paper examines the ethical principles embodied, implicitly or explicitly, in this Code; it tests these principles for coherence, comprehensiveness, clarity and enforce-ability. Furthermore, it seeks to determine whether this Code articulates standards of ethical conduct that are higher than those already required by law and whether the Code successfully translates a general ethical vision down to concrete, everyday real estate practice.     

Trading with Repressive Regimes

Is it ethical to do business with regimes which are politically repressive or which do not respect Western minimum labour and environmental standards? The author is completing his MBA degree at London Business School, and is a Canadian with a background in marketing.     

Toward an Applied Meaning for Ethics in Business

The field of business ethics has been active for several decades, but it has yet to develop a generally agreed upon applied ethical perspective for the discipline. Academics in business disciplines have developed useful science-based models explaining why business people behave ethically but without a generally accepted definition of ethical behavior. Academics in moral philosophy have attempted to formulate what they believe ethical behavior is, but many seem to ignore or reject the basic mission of business. The purpose of this article is to offer one view of ethics in business that accommodates the mission of business. This purpose is achieved by reviewing the mission of ethics in applied disciplines like business and melding it into the mission of business in capitalistic societies.     

Ethical Attitudes in Small Businesses and Large Corporations: Theory and Empirical Findings from a Tracking Study Spanning Three Decades

This study offers a theoretical framework of ethical behavior and a comparative analysis of ethical perceptions of managers of large, mostly publicly traded corporations (those with 1,000 or more employees) and the owners and managers of smaller companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) across 17 years. The primary research provides basic data on the changing standards of ethics as perceived by leaders of large and small businesses where the cultures frequently fall into sharp contrast. Our findings reveal the extent to which the message of business integrity is gaining or losing ground within large and small companies. It does this by means of respondents’ judgments of acceptable responses to 16 scenarios profiling common business situations with questionable ethical dimensions. Based on responses from over 5,000 managers and employees (from firms of all sizes) to our scenarios at three points in time (1985, 1993, 2001), we tested two research questions. First, for firms of all sizes, have business ethics improved or declined between the years 1985 and 2001? Second, comparing responses of large and small firm executives across the 1985–2001 time frame, is there a discernible difference in their ethical standards? Our results suggest that business leaders are making somewhat more ethical decisions in recent years. We also found that small business owner–managers offered less ethical responses to scenarios in 1993 but that no significant differences existed with large firm managers in 1985 and 2001. Implications of our findings are discussed.     

The Ethics of Giving Notice

What ethical issues are raised when employees are going to be given notice to leave? Are some approaches more ethical than others? This paper analysing the ethics of the situation and offering ethical guidelines was prepared for the Swedish Association of Graduates in Business Administration and Economics in its work to formulate a professional code of conduct. The author holds a PhD in business administration and is a member of The Swedish Council for Management and Work Life Issues, P.O. Box 5042, S-10241 Stockholm, Sweden.