Is there any ethics in business ethics

It is argued, against Richard T. De George, that while clarification of concepts, implications, and presuppositions in business ethics largely relies on a neutral territory of reason, determination of what moral intuitions are correct depends on non-neutral ethical theories. The latter posit ethics in business to varying degrees. Thus while the Kantian and utilitarian ethical theories are, for De George, proper (philosophical) approaches to business ethics, they are as reliant on affirming and encouraging moral sentiments outside parameters of pure reason as theological approaches. And hence if theological approaches can make no unique contribution by virtue of relying on more than reason or experience alone, then philosophical approaches can make no distinctive contribution either. Either both are viable or neither are. Oscillation between the mutually dependent notions of business ethics and ethics in business obfuscates what the field of business ethics is and renders De George's position inadequate.Robert Trundle, Jr., received his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northern Kentucky University where he teaches Business Ethics. He has worked at such companies as Stearns-Roger and Rogerson-Hiller Corporation where he was a member of the Hazardous Materials Safety Committee.     

Justice: The root of american business ideology and ethics

Although there are many conceptions of Justice, these different perceptions can provide many interesting insights into a business person's ethical standards as well as that person's decision-making processes. Using the Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the U.S. Economy as the basis for asking questions about justice, twenty-four business executives were interviewed about their conception of justice. An analysis of these interviews reveals that this group of businesspeople operated under very different conceptions of Justice at the Macroenvironmental and Microenvironmental levels. This result has some interesting implications not only for those scholars concerned with business ethics but for everyone who has a stake in business education.Men are called good, chiefly on account of their Justice. Cicero, 56 B.C. Ideology is applied philosophy. Lodge, 1986 Richard McGowan, S. J. is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Strategic Management at Boston College. His research focus involves examining both the rationale behind business and public policy decisions as well as determining the effectiveness of these policy measures. Some of his recent publications include Deciphering the Japanese Import Quota, Policy Studies Journal (1988) and Public Policy Measures and Cigarette Sales: An ARIMA Intervention Analysis Study JAI Social Issues Management Volume (1989).     

Ethical Beliefs and Management Behaviour: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

A cross-cultural empirical study is reported in this article which looks at ethical beliefs and behaviours among French and German managers, and compares this with previous studies of U.S. and Israeli managers using a similar questionnaire. Comparisons are made between what managers say they believe, and what they do, between managers and their peers' attitudes and behaviours, and between perceived top management attitudes and the existence of company policy. In the latter, significant differences are found by national ownership of the company rather than the country in which it is situated. Significant differences are found, for both individual managers by nationality, and for companies by nationality of parents, in the area of organizational loyalty. The attitude towards accepting gifts and favours in exchange for preferential treatment, as a measure of societal values, is also found to show significant differences between national groups. However, no significant differences are found for measures for group loyalty, conflict between organizational and group loyalty and for conflicts between self and group/organization. The findings have implications for cross-border management decision strategies regarding such issues as receiving and giving of gifts, and the management of relations between local employees and international organizations which may be affected by differences in attitude to corporate loyalty.     

A Qualitative Exploration into Voters' Ethical Perceptions of Political Advertising: Discourse, Disinformation, and Moral Boundaries

Political campaign advertising continues to be a controversial policy topic in advertising and marketing research. It is also a prime subject for investigating the ethical evaluations of consumers (or voters). The following study draws from postmodern communication theory and employs a qualitative research methodology in order to explore voters' intimate and subjective views about politics, candidates, and political advertising. The findings include emergent themes relating to significant media rituals in voters' lives, the cynical perspective of politics as a game, and the widespread disapproval and suspicion with which voters regard negative political advertising. Additionally, the a priori theme of political information as disinformation was proposed and expanded upon. Findings are discussed in light of a greater understanding of the appropriateness of the traditional versus the postmodern perspective of political communication, informants' construction of moral boundaries which help them determine right from wrong, acceptable vs. unacceptable political behaviours in this particular context.     

Pygmalion effect: An issue for business education and ethics

This study reports the results of a survey designed to assess the impact of business education on the ethical beliefs of business students. The study examines the beliefs of graduate and undergraduate students about ethical behavior in educational settings. The investigation indicates that the behavior which students learn or perceive is required to succeed in business schools may run counter to the ethical sanctions of society and the business community. Michael S. Lane is Assistant Professor of Management at West Virginia University. He is the coauthor of An Integrated Approach to Curriculum Design/Redesign, Journal of Education for Business (1986), and Corporate Goals and Managerial Motivation, Mid-South Business Journal (1985).Dietrich Schaupp is Professor of Management at West Virginia University.Barbara Parsons is Assistant Professor of Commerce at Fairmont State College.     

Mergers,takeovers, and a property ethic

The recent takeover and merger trend cries out for ethical evaluation. This essay proposes a model for evaluating them in terms of their impact on a firm's immediate stakeholders: investors, owners, management and employees. Since mergers and takeovers are Transfers of Ownership of Firms (TOFs) they entail a property ethic of ownership, control, securing stakeholder interests, and defining which stakeholders should exercise these rights. I use the model to evaluate two fictional cases, a friendly merger and a hostile takeover. The results show that neither TOF serves all interests equitably. Since the control structure of the private firm is legitimized by its interest structure, I reason that both should be reformed. Both rest on a broader economic rationale; but it is controverted. Accordingly, the economic and ethical evaluation of TOFs, I conclude, both entail the democratic reform of the control structure of the firm.A corporation represents far more than its current stock price; it embodies obligations to employees, customers, suppliers and communities.Robert S. Saul, Peers Merchant BankVincent di Norcia is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sudbury. He is the author of Ethics in Management and Beyond the Red Tory.     

Business regulation,business ethics and the professional employee

The differences in business reactions to legal regulation, and the nature of business moralities, are examined through the eyes of an expert group — in-house lawyers. The research indicates that lawyers inevitably provide a degree of control through their technical expertise, but that they also identify strongly with their companies and emphasise shared ethics rather than ethical differences between lawyers and their employers. This can partly be explained by their integration with the company but also rests on the problematic nature of law and regulatory controls in relation to organisations within the community. In-house lawyers therefore reject a policing role in favour of a counselling role. Since they perceive themselves as part of a shared culture of ethics, they also avoid a leadership role. However, the article suggests that the nature of legal judgment should assist lawyers towards such a role, while recognising that organisational statesmanship must be constrained by organisational culture and the wider community culture of ethical standards. Dr Karl J. Mackie is Director of the Centre for Legal Studies in the University of Nottingham, where he lectures in employment law and in management skills development. Lawyers in Business: and the Law Business is published by Macmillan (London) 1989. Dr Mackie is a member of the Business Strategy Network and a consultant in business strategy.This paper has been adapted from Mackie, Lawyers in Business: and the Law Business (1989), (London: Macmillan), ch. 10.     

Insider trading revisited

A recent article in this Journal argued that insider trading is an unethical practice leading to an inefficiently functioning market. The debate on this topic has primarily pitted ethical defenses of prohibition against economic arguments extolling its allowance. In addition to being incomplete, this approach ignores other unwanted economic effects of prohibition itself and unethical implications of its existence. This article shows that Adam Smith's free market concept, when properly interpreted, provides all the incentive structure necessary for an efficient and ethical marketplace even when insider trading is permitted. Deryl W. Martin has presented his research at several regional and national conferences, and has published in the Journal of Economics and Business, the Journal of Strategic and Financial Decisions, The Moneypaper, and several proceedings and newspapers. He is currently Assistant Professor of Finance at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN.Jeffrey H. Peterson is a doctoral candidate in finance at the University of Alabama. He also has presented his research at several regional and national meetings, and is currently Instructor of Finance at St. Bonaventure University in Olean, NY.     

Ethics Training and Businesspersons’ Perceptions of Organizational Ethics

Ethics training is commonly cited as a primary method for increasing employees ethical decision making and conduct. However, little is known about how the presence of ethics training can enhance other components of an organization's ethical environment such as employees perception of company ethical values. Using a national sample of 313 business professionals employed in the United States, the relationship between ethics training and perceived organizational ethics was explored. The results of the analysis provide significant statistical support for the notion that businesspersons employed in organizations that have formalized ethics training programs have more positive perceptions of their companies ethical context than do individuals employed in organizations that do not. The analysis also indicated that job satisfaction was related to employees attitudes about their ethical context. The managerial implications of the results are outlined, along with the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research.     

A quick justification for business ethics

The article examines the question of whether business ethics courses ought to have an impact. Despite the still common attitude among students and some business professionals that ethical considerations are less pressing in business, I argue that moral obligations are just as important there as elsewhere. The emphasis on profits in business is related to other realms (e.g., hobbies and seeking and education) in which, though private goals are dominant, moral limits remain in force. Business ethics courses can play a crucial role in emphasizing the necessity of ethical analysis in business. Louis G. Lombardi is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Lake Forest College and the author of Inherent Worth, Respect, and Rights in Environmental Ethics.     

Management-think

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the philosophical foundations of business management. The need for such a review is established. Emphasis is placed upon the role of management ethos in such a philosophy. Philosophical concepts (such as the concept of an intention) which are widely applied in management, but not explored in the management literature, are examined. While the emphasis is on philosophical concepts, the material presented is applicable in the practice of management. Mark Pastin is Director of the Center for Private and Public Sector Ethics and Professor of Management at the Arizona State University. He received the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and was a Research Fellow of the Center for Metropolitan Research of John Hopkins University. His most important publications are Strategic Planning for Science The Research System in the 1980s, ed. by John Logsdon (Franklin Institute Press, 1982), Ethics and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Business Horizons (December 1980), The Multi-Perspectival Theory of Knowledge, Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume V (University of Minnesota Press, 1980), and Meaning and Perception, Journal of Philosophy (October 1976).     

Can Ethical Organizational Character Be Stimulated and Enabled?: “Upbuilding” Dialog As Crisis Management Method

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organizations ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian upbuilding dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organizations tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations of an organizations tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of upbuilding dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerrys, a business organization.     

What is business in America?

This paper, presented at the Conference on Value Issues in Business at Millsaps College, is divided into three parts. The first sketches the logic of the evolution of U.S. business and suggests reasons for its remarkable success. The second assesses the power of U.S. business in modern society, both from an economic and political perspective. The third attempts to formulate the underlying philosophy of U.S. business using ideals such as the work ethic, entrepreneurism, democracy, and equality. Some of these ideals, the paper suggests, are irreconcilable. Thomas J. Donaldson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago. His publications in the area of business ethics include numerous articles and two books, Ethical Issues in Business co-edited with Patricia Werhane, and Corporations and Morality.     

Christ and business: A typology for Christian business ethics

H. Richard Niebuhr's typology of the relation between Christ and culture can function as a heuristic device to identify different approaches to Christian business ethics. Five types are outlined: Christ Against Business, The Christ of Business, Christ Above Business, Christ and Business in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Business. This typology may facilitate discussion on the relative adequacy of various theological assumptions about ethical change in business. Louke Siker received her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1987 (dissertation: Interpreting Corporate Cultures: Philosophical and Theological Reasons for Doing Business Ethics in a Hermeneutical Mode). She has taught Christian ethics and business ethics at Wake Forest University and Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include methodology in business ethics. She is the author of An Unlikely Dialogue: Barth and Business Ethicists on Human Work, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1989.     

National Innovation Systems, ‘Real Economies’ and Instituted Processes

The design of institutions, policies and units of analysis are all predicated upon the ways in which we see the world and explain change. Today, as the pace of change quickens due to technological advancement and growing technoeconomic interdependencies in a series of processes generally referred to as globalization, analytic frameworks which emphasize national systems have emerged to provide a unit of analysis through which to explain these changes and growing interactions. These frameworks have the allure of trying to incorporate the ways in which economies, markets and economic agents actually behave – with particular reference to innovation, knowledge, learning and institutions. Our purpose in this paper is to raise some questions about the importance of these frameworks from a policy (managerial) and analytic perspective, to outline some limitations of their utility, and to suggest some useful paths for investigation.     

Ethics as an integrating force in management

Ethics will not become part of the management decision-making process until it ceases to be viewed as an add-on; first you decide, then you assess the decision ethically. This essay focuses on one ethical concept, the good or the valuable, and shows how to incorporate it in an ethically and economically effective decision process. We focus on this concept because it uncovers a key fault in strategic thinking and generates questions central to any complex decision.The concept of the valuable is used to distinguish goals and purposes. A goal is a more or less specific target toward which one aims. A purpose is a way of being or functioning viewed as valuable in itself.Purposes make values operational. We look at values through a set of questions derived from the concept of the valuable. One question probes the range of individuals relevant to a decision. Participatory and dialectical decision approaches are critiqued. A second question probes the standards of rationality implicit in management decisions.We conclude by responding to two objections. The first is that justice in decision-making is insufficiently considered. The second is that there is little reason to think that the proposals made here would work if implemented. Mark Pastin is Director of the Center for Private and Public Sector Ethics and Professor of Philosophy, Business, and Public Affairs at Arizona State University. He was formerly Associate Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University, and had visiting appointments at Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of Maryland. He has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and Research Fellow of the Center for Metropolitan Research of John Hopkins University. His most important publications are: Strategic Planning for Science, The Research System in the 1980s, ed. by John Logsdon (Franklin Institute Press, 1982), Ethics and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Business Horizons (December 1980), The Multi-Perspectival Theory of Knowlegde, Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume V (University of Minnesota Press, 1980), and Meaning and Perception, Journal of Philosophy (October 1976).This began as a joint project with H. J. Zoffer of the University of Pittsburgh. We both were promoting the idea of integrating ethics in management decision-making, but were embarrassed that we had little to say about how to proceed. So we picked the ethical concept of the good and set to work. This final product is my responsibility, but it certainly profited from Zoffer's efforts. This paper was presented at the 16th Conference on Value Inquiry, entitled: Ethics and the Market Place: An Exercise in Bridge-Building or On the Slopes of the Interface.     

Management development and business ethics: A view from the U.K.

This article is written in the context of current British interest in management training and development, in which an emphasis on competency is viewed critically, as technically oriented, with little attention paid to ethics and moral values. It is suggested that a concern for ethics in management development can be expressed in terms of four requisite management attributes or qualities: theoretical knowledge and understanding; affective qualities; personal and interpersonal skills; and self-knowledge. Following Kohlberg's work on moral development, the cultivation of these attributes is viewed as a life-span process involving three broadly defined forms of management development practice, each appropriate to different circumstances and stages in a learner's career. It is concluded that the conventional teaching of theory, learning from experience and counselling/mentoring, are equally important in the contribution which management development can make to the resolution of ethical dilemmas in business practice.Patrick Maclagan is a lecturer in organisational behaviour and managerial ethics at the School of Management, University of Hull, U.K., where he is also on the Steering Committee of the Social Values Research Centre, His current research concerns the relationship between management development and ethics in organisations.     

General causal models in business ethics: An essay on colliding research traditions

The construction of causal models for research in business ethics has become fashionable in recent years. This paper explores four recent proposals, comparing and contrasting their views. The primary purpose of this paper is to expose several confusions inherent in such models and to account for these errors in terms of a failure to distinguish between models as theories and models as representing a research tradition. We conclude with a brief set of recommendations for linking two major research traditions in business ethics: empiricism and ethical theory.F. Neil Brady is Professor of Management at San Diego State University. He is the author ofEthical Managing: Rules and Results (Macmillan, 1990) and numerous articles on business ethics. His research focuses on the application of ethical theory to business decision making.Mary Jo Hatch is an Associate Professor at San Diego State University and visiting Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. Her research interests include the link between business ethics and organizational culture, and humor in management teams. She has published articles on organizational culture and the behavioral and symbolic aspects of organizations as physical structures.     

Giving ethics the business

The criminal conviction of Amway Corporation for evasion of Canadian customs duties not only belies the high ethical profession of its president, Richard DeVos, but his reissuing of the book which makes this profession, without mentioning the conviction, supports the view that ultimately ethics and business are pulling in opposite directions.Colin Grant is Professor of Religious Studies at Mount Allison University, Sackville, N. B. He teaches The Ethics and Ethos of Business and has published articles in Liberal Arts and Religious Studies Periodicals.     

Norman Bowie and Richard Rorty on multinationals: Does business ethics need ‘metaphysical comfort?’

Norman Bowie wrote an article on the moral obligations of multinational corporations in 1987. This paper is a response to Bowie, but more importantly, it is designed to articulate the force and substance of the pragmatist philosophy developed by Richard Rorty. In his article, Bowie suggested that moral universalism (which he endorses) is the only credible method of doing business ethics across cultures and that cultural relativism and ethnocentrism are not. Bowie, in a manner surprisingly common among contemporary philosophers, lumps Rorty into a bad guy category without careful analysis of his philosophy and ascribes to him views which clearly do not fit. I attempt to provide both a more careful articulation of Rorty's views, and to use his pragmatism to illustrate an approach to business ethics which is more fruitful than Bowie's. This brand of philosophy follows the Enlightenment spirit of toleration and attempts to set aside questions of Truth, whether religious or philosophical, and have ethics centered around what James called that which is good in the way of belief. Rather than looking for metaphysical foundations or some type of external justification, ethicists perform their craft from within the cultural traditions, narratives and practices of their society.Andrew C. Wicks, M.A. in Religious Ethics. Currently a fourth year Doctoral Candidate in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.