A critique of Western philosophical ethics: Multidisciplinary alternatives for framing ethical dilemmas

American discourse in business ethics is steeped in the traditional ethical theories of Western philosophies, specifically the Greek classics, Kant, and the British Utilitarians. These theories may be largely uninterpretable or unacceptable to non-Western populations owing to different traditions, religious beliefs, or cultural histories. As economic boundaries collapse and markets become more global in scope, traditional Western ethical thought may lead to clashes among Western organizations and companies from differing cultural settings. Such clashes could lead to alienation of foreign customers, firms and governments and resultant competitive disadvantage, or to an abandonment of ethical considerations altogether in the struggle to compete internationally. This paper puts forward two general alternatives to Western ethical philosophies as useful frameworks for the analysis of international ethical dilemmas. The first alternative uses new organizational economics, while the second emphasizes role relationships and organizational citizenship.William B. Carlin passed away on Thursday, March 3, 1994 in Louisville, Colorado, after this article was accepted but prior to its publication. Bill was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado and a faculty member at the University of Denver at the time of his death. His friends, family, and colleagues will miss him very much.Kelly Strong is currently an assistant professor of management at Illinois State University. He has written in the areas of corporate social responsibility and ethical decision-making. He teaches strategic management at Illinois State University.     

Progressive labour policy, ageing Marxism and unrepentant early capitalism in the Chinese industrial revolution

The institutional guarantees of modern labour law, that provide the keystone of progressive liberalism, are often only reactionary to the entrenched concepts of socialist law. Adoption of institutions of “workers rights”, and employment protection based upon contract, inevitably nullify the ideological promise of the inalienable “right to work”. China, among the last bastions of theoretical Marxist socialism, and among the first socialist countries ready to accept that it has been in desperate need of reforming uneconomical state enterprises, seems willing to sacrifice ideological purity for economic development. Yet, if economic turnaround requires enterprise rationalisation in a market economy, it is understandable that Chinese labour requires the same kinds of protection against unbridled capitalism as progressive labour movements elsewhere. Doubtless, for those who have enjoyed no such institutional guarantees in the past, official commitment to improvement of labour conditions is better than no acknowledgment of need for reform of social policy whatever. Yet, the real question for students of social change is “Are these legislated reforms effective policy guides for local administration and the courts?”“|Or are they merely regulations for licensing compliance – primarily for foreign invested enterprises?”. In brief, “... to what extent are the new ‘workers’ rights’ realistically attainable sources of judicial remedies for individual workers?”     

Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories.     

The forgotten crisis

“ … financial markets are like the mirror of mankind, revealing every hour of every working day the way we value ourselves and the resources of the world around us. It is not the fault of the mirror if it reflects our blemishes as clearly as our beauty.”     

Periphery capitalism — Without question mark

This article is a rejoinder to Professor Marion Mushkat’s contribution “Pheripheric Capitalism?” which was published in INTERECONOMICS, No. 5, May 1975.     

The impact of ethical ideology on modifiers of ethical decisions and suggested punishment for ethical infractions

The present study sought to determine the extent to which individuals' ethical ideologies, as measured by Forsyth's (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), impacted the degree of punishment they advocated for differing ethical infractions, as well as their selection of non-ethics related variables that might be used to modify judgments of disciplinary action. The data revealed that individual ideology does impact both advocated punishment and choice of non-ethics related variables, but only in some measures. The data are discussed in terms of potential moderating variables that could be examined in future studies.Robert A. Giacalone is the author of over 40 management articles, as well as two books,Impression Management in the Organization andApplied Impression Management, and the Editor of a Special Issue of theJournal of Business Ethics on Behavioral Aspects of Business Ethics. In 1992, Sage Publications named him the Editor of the Sage Series in Business Ethics, a book series dedicated to ethics education for students and practitioners. Dr. Giacalone is currently Associate Professor of Management Systems at the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business, University of Richmond.Scott Fricker is currently a doctoral student in the social psychology program at the University of California-Santa Barbara. The research described herein reflects, in part, research done as a psychology undergraduate at the University of Richmond.Jon W. Beard is currently Assistant Professor of Management Systems in the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. His work primarily concerns behavioral and organizational issues related to the management of technology. He is currently editing a book titledImpression Management and Information Technology for Greenwood Press.     

Adam Smith and the ethics of contemporary capitalism

This paper presents a theoretical elaboration of the ethical framework of classical capitalism as formulated by Adam Smith in reaction to the dominant mercantilism of his day. It is seen that Smith's project was profoundly ethical and designed to emancipate the consumer from a producer and state dominated economy. Over time, however, the various dysfunctions of a capitalist economy — e.g., concentration of wealth, market power — became manifest and the utilitarian ethical basis of the system eroded. Contemporary capitalism, dominated as it is by large corporations, entrenched political interests and persistent social pathologies, bears little resemblance to the system which Smith envisioned would serve the common man. Most critiques of capitalism are launched from a Marxian-based perspective. We find, however, that by illustrating the wide gap between the reality of contemporary capitalism and the model of amoral political economy developed by Smith, the father of capitalism proves to be the most trenchant critic of the current order.G. R. Bassiry is currently professor of Management and international business at California State University, San Bernardino, California. Formerly he served as Vice President and Acting President of Farabi University. His most recent articles on business ethics include Ethics, Education, and Corporate Leadership,Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics and the United Nations: A Code of Conduct,Sam Advanced Management Journal. He has also published numerous journal articles on international business, corporate strategy and corporate leadership, and is the author ofPower vs. Profit by Arno Press of New York Times.Marc Jones is a management lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His research interests include multinational corporations and economic development. He has worked as a financial analyst for Electronic Data Systems Corporation and as a management consultant for Peat Marwick Main & Company.     

The Protestant Ethic as an ideological justification of capitalism

The Protestant Ethic not only had behavioral implications, as Max Weber and others have pointed out, it also had ideological implications in providing a moral legitimacy for capitalism. The Protestant Ethic provided a moral justification for the pursuit of profit and the distribution of income that are a part of the system. Currently there is a good deal of intellectual concern about the moral legitimacy of the capitalist system. Thus it is important to trace the origins of the Protestant Ethic and recover the ideological functions it performs in a capitalistic society.     

State capitalism in international context: Varieties and variations

State interventions in markets assume varieties of forms in different economic systems. To capture this variety, we consider state capitalism as a multidimensional concept, first reviewing its historical evolution from both practical and scholarly vantages. We describe several dimensions of state capitalism and demonstrate how cross-national variations can be captured through positioning countries along these dimensions. We use cross-sectional data for a large sample of countries to derive factors that represent key dimensions of state capitalism. We demonstrate how cross-national and historical variation in state capitalism is captured by this Virtual Special Issue and offer suggestions for future research.     

Playing by the rules: ethical criteria at an ethical investment fund

Although ethical investment is a growing phenonenon which attracts a signficant amount of media interest, relatively little has been written about the internal operations of ethical investment funds. Using a variety of sources, including interviews with a fund manager and participant observation at meetings of the fund's ethical advisory committee, this paper examines the decision making of one ethical unit trust operating in the United Kingdom. In particular, it describes the development of the ethical criteria and the ways in which their implementation was monitored. Several significant parallels between publicly stated ethical investment criteria and corporate codes of ethics are then discusssed.