Teaching Business Ethics: The Role of Ethics in Business and in Business Education

The paper begins with an examination of traditional attitudes towards business ethics. I suggest that these attitudes fail to recognize that a principal function of ethics is to facilitate cooperation. Further that despite the emphasis on competition in modern market economies, business like all other forms of social activity is possible only where people are prepared to respect rules in the absence of which cooperation is rendered difficult or impossible. Rules or what I call the ethics of doing, however, constitute just one dimension of ethics. A second has to do with what we see and how we see it; a third with who we or what I describe as the ethics of being. Of these three dimensions, the first and the third have been most carefully explored by philosophers and are most frequently the focus of attention when teaching business ethics is being discussed. I argue that this focus is unfortunate in as much as it is the second dimension which falls most naturally into the ambit of modern secular educational institutions. It is here that moral education is most obviously unavoidable, and most clearly justifiable in modern secular teaching environments. I conclude by describing the importance of this second dimension for the modern world of business.     

Franchising Research Frontiers for the Twenty-First Century

About four decades ago, during the formative years of the franchising industry, visionary authors like Oxenfeldt and Kelly (1968) and Ozanne and Hunt (1971) proposed a rich slate of research agenda which still continues to guide some of the contemporary scholarship in the franchising domain. This article (1) explicates some of the unique features of the franchising context that presumably inspired these pioneering authors, (2) discusses four established elements of ontology unique to franchising and isolates the remaining research gaps therein, (3) specifies a new slate of more contemporary research agenda for future scholarship, and (4) concludes with a brief discussion of the ten articles featured in this Special Issue of the Journal of Retailing dedicated to the theme of Franchising and Retailing.     

Business Ethics: The Bottom Line

Teaching Business Ethics -     

Personal Ethics and Business Ethics: The Ethical Attitudes of Owner/ Managers of Small Business

To date, the study of business ethics has been largely the study of the ethics of large companies. This paper is concerned with owner/managers of small firms and the link between the personal ethics of the owner/manager and his or her attitude to ethical problems in business. By using active membership of an organisation with an overt ethical dimension (for example, a church) as a surrogate for personal ethics the research provides some, though not unequivocal, support for the models of Trevino and others that suggest a link between personal ethics and business ethics.     

Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education

Unethical conduct has reached crisis proportions in business (Walker et al., Wall Str J East Edn, 258(37):A1–A10, 2011) and on today’s college campuses (Burke et al., CPA J, 77(5):58–65, 2007). Despite the evidence that suggests that more than half of business students admit to dishonest practices (McCabe et al. 2006), only about 5 % of business school deans surveyed believe that dishonesty is a problem at their schools (Brown et al., Coll Stud J A, 44(2):299–308, 2010). In addition, the AACSB which establishes standards for accredited business schools has resisted the urging of deans and business experts to require business schools to teach an ethics class, and fewer than one-third of businesses schools now teach a business ethics course at the graduate or undergraduate levels (Swanson and Fisher, Advancing Business Ethics Education, 2008). In this paper we briefly introduce the status of business ethics education and report the results of a survey of business students, deans of the top business schools, and business ethics subject matter experts about ten ethical outcomes. We then offer five specific recommendations to encourage business ethics faculty and decision makers to improve the teaching of business ethics.     

Business Ethics: The Promise of Neuroscience

Cultural diversity is an increasingly important phenomenon that affects not only social and political harmony but also the cohesion and efficiency of organisations. The problems that firms have with regard to managing cultural diversity have been abundantly studied in recent decades from the perspectives of management theory and moral philosophy, but there are still open questions that require deeper reflection and broader empirical analysis. Managing cultural diversity in organisations is of prime importance because it involves harmonising different values, beliefs, credos and customs, and, in essence, human identity. Taking into consideration these cultural differences and harmonising them is a human rights issue (UNDP, Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world, 2004) and a central dimension of corporate social responsibility. Here we are going to focus on theoretical reflection about the ideas that lie behind corporate policies and organisational initiatives that deal with cultural diversity. The aim of our paper is twofold: to present a critical reflection on the ideology of tolerance, and propose an ideology of respect for dealing with cultural diversity. We start by presenting the plurality of interpretations of the concept of ideology, and justify its applicability to the field of cultural diversity. We then reflect on the differences between “tolerance” and “respect” and identifying the practical implications for managing cultural diversity. And finally, we propose a culture of respect that goes beyond tolerance and complements and legitimizes the “business case” perspective for managing cultural diversity in companies. The ideology of respect is based on the Kantian tradition and on the discursive approach where rational dialogue and argumentation are considered the legitimate process for creating a culture of intercultural respect. From this theoretical discussion of the key philosophical concepts we can suggest some general principles for managing cultural diversity in organisations.     

The Separation of Technology and Ethics in Business Ethics

The purpose of this paper is to draw out and make explicit the assumptions made in the treatment of technology within business ethics. Drawing on the work of Freeman (1994, 2000) on the assumed separation between business and ethics, we propose a similar separation exists in the current analysis of technology and ethics. After first identifying and describing the separation thesis assumed in the analysis of technology, we will explore how this assumption manifests itself in the current literature. A different stream of analysis, that of science and technology studies (STS), provides a starting point in understanding the interconnectedness of technology and society. As we will demonstrate, business ethicists are uniquely positioned to analyze the relationship between business, technology, and society. The implications of a more complex and rich definition of ‘technology’ ripple through the analysis of business ethics. Finally, we propose a pragmatic approach to understanding technology and explore the implications of such an approach to technology. This new approach captures the broader understanding of technology advocated by those in STS and allows business ethicists to analyze a broader array of dilemmas and decisions.     

Who's Who in Business Ethics: The Institute of Business Ethics — Ten Years

One of the best known business ethics resources in Britain is the Institute of Business Ethics, which this month celebrates its tenth anniversary. In wishing the Institute many more years of valuable service to the UK business community, we are indebted to its Director, Stanley Kiaer, for this chronicle of its first decade of activity. The Institute is situated at 12 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JA; tel (44) (0) 171 931 0495; fax (44) (0) 171 821 5819.     

FOCUS: Research in Business Ethics* Business Ethics Research: Shaping the Agenda

“The most significant outcome of effective business ethics research would be an improvement of ethical standards and ethical behaviour in organizations”. So how can such research be made effective? The author is Lecturer in Management Studies, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College.     

The International Business Ethics Index: Japan

The Business Ethics Index (BEI) was expanded in Japan. The overall BEI for Japan stands at 99.1 – slightly on the negative side. The component BEI patterns were similar to those in the U.S. In an open-ended question about their ethical experiences as consumers, the Japanese were concerned about customer service and good management practices. John Tsalikis is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Psychology in Marketing. Bruce Seaton is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida International University. His research interests include the role of national stereotyping in consumer choice and the application of experimental methods to investigate models of business ethics. His articles have appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Global Marketing.     

Oversight Ethics: The Case of Business Licensing

The ethics research community has all but ignored issues of oversight ethics – the vices and virtues of overseers. This study develops a conceptual framework for exploring the ethics of oversight and provides insights into the design of codes of ethics for oversight institutions and for overseers. Analysis of business licensing in Israel reveals prospective and retrospective oversight ethics problems at the levels of national and local policy and implementation: Overseers failed to act on knowledge of breaches of business licensing stipulations and took action known to be slow and ineffective; policymakers neglected their duty to enact significant policy change in an oversight system that was clearly not working. Partially as a result of these oversight failures, over one third of Israeli businesses are unlicensed, 23 people were killed in the collapse of an unlicensed banquet hall, 2 major fires erupted in the same shopping mall, and a fire in a fertilizer warehouse very nearly became a mega-disaster.