Beyond Good and Evil: The Adiaphoric Company

In this article, six demoralising processes in the context of the company are identified. These processes promote a realm of ‘being-with’, in which outcomes of human interaction are evaluated on rational grounds, and on whether or not a particular action accorded with stipulated ethical rules. Thereby the realm of ‘being-for’, in which individuals are supported to take increased responsibility, is marginalized. The conclusion made is that not only do the demoralizing processes systematically produce moral distance between humans, which weakens individual spontaneous outbursts of sympathy to take increased moral responsibility, they also promise to release individuals from their moral ambivalence by declaring organised action morally indifferent. Organisational action is, in other words, declared as adiaphoric – beyond good and evil.     

Sartrean Existentialism and Ethical Decision-Making in Business

A wide range of decision-making models have been offered to assist in making ethical decisions in the workplace. Those that are based on normative moral frameworks typically include elements of traditional moral philosophy such as consequentialist and/or deontological␣ethics. This paper suggests an alternative model drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Accordingly, the model focuses on making decisions in full awareness of one’s freedom and responsibility. The steps of the model are intended to encourage reflection of one’s projects and one’s situation and the possibility of refusing the expectations of others. A case study involving affirmative action in South Africa is used to demonstrate the workings of the model and a number of strengths and weaknesses are identified. Despite several weaknesses that can be raised regarding existential ethics, the model’s success lies in the way that it reframes ethical dilemmas in terms of individual freedom and responsibility, and in its acceptance and analysis of subjective experiences and personal situations. Andrew West is a Lecturer in the School of Business and Economics at the South African Campus of Monash University, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Pretoria.     

Motivations of the Ethical Consumer

There are strong indications that many consumers are switching towards more socially and environmentally responsible products and services, reflecting a shift in consumer values indicated in several countries. However, little is known about the motives that drive some toward, or deter others from, higher levels of ethical concern and action in their purchasing decisions. Following a qualitative investigation using ZMET and focus group discussions, a questionnaire was developed and administered to a representative sample of consumers; nearly 1,000 usable questionnaires were collected. The degree of awareness, concern and action regarding 16 ethical issues was quantified, using a measure developed from the Stages of Change concept within the Transtheoretical model. Motivations for ethical behaviour, in relation to each individual’s most salient ethical issue, were investigated using initially 22 motive statements within the framework of the Decisional Balance Scale (DBS). The findings suggest that the DBS and Stages model have an explanatory value within the ethical decision-making context, and that the motives identified do reflect the Decisional Balance Constructs. Indeed the study suggests that respondents’ motivational attitudes are a function of their stage of ethical awareness, concern and action. Therefore, the Decisional Balance Scale may well prove useful for designing appropriate interventions and communications to facilitate movement towards more ethical decision-making. These findings yield strategic insight for communicating messages to ethical consumers and for better understanding their purchasing decisions.     

Exploring the Interface Between Strategy-Making and Responsible Leadership

Theorists have long argued that a process of individualisation is inherent in conditions of late modernity. Whilst individualisation has been acknowledged in the business ethics literature, studies have often overlooked the processes by which individuals are given greater responsibility for ethical decision making and the personal and institutional effects of this responsibility. This article develops a notion of ‘ethical individualisation’ to help one understand and explore how and why ethical responsibility is being devolved to employees in the UK consulting industry. The article argues that an individualised ethics is incapable of preventing malpractice in the face of institutional conflicts of interest.     

The Business of Commercial Legal Advice and the Ethical Implications for Lawyers and Their Clients

Company directors and executives seek legal advice outside the company on a regular basis. This advice is meant to be given within the context of the lawyers’ professional obligations and ethical practise. What clients may not appreciate is there is often a conflict of interest between the lawyers’ professional and ethical concerns and the legal advice business. If lawyers follow their business interests, their advice may be incomplete especially in relation to the ethical consequences of that advice. This could lead to a compromise of the clients’ commercial interests and even raise doubts in relation to the legality of the clients’ proposed course of action.     

Affirmative action and redistributive ethics

Management faces complex race related issues in which groups arguing entitlement appear to claim benefits historically enjoyed by others. Thus many affirmative action issues provoke animosity because they are framed as zero sum problems. To some extent they are zero sum. Therefore, rationales for corporate policy must address that forthrightly. Up to now the corporate justification has been weak. The article describes a social debt owed interracially resulting from the accumulation of current class benefits from past discrimination, and asserts that affirmative action policies have a firm ethical basis inasmuch as they are affectively redistributing benefits to pay the social debt. Richard F. America is a program manager at the U.S. Small Business Administration and Research Associate at the Howard University, Institute for Urban Affairs. He has taught at the business schools at the University of California at Berkeley and at Stanford University, and was a consultant at Stanford Research Institute. He is coauthor (with Bernard E. Anderson) of Moving Ahead: Black Managers in American Business,McGraw Hill, New York, NY, 1978.     

Religion, Opportunism, and International Market Entry Via Non-Equity Alliances or Joint Ventures

One challenge that globalization has brought to business is that firms, as they expand their market globally through cross-border alliances, need to deal with partner firms from countries of different religious background. The impact of a country’s dominant religion on its firms’ international market entry mode choices has not been examined in traditional approaches. Focusing on hypothesizing the influence of Christian beliefs and atheism (i.e., the absence of belief in any deities), this research aims to fill the gap by exploring religion’s role in providing moral restraint on managers’ propensity for opportunism, which in turn affects these managers’ choices of their firms’ international market entry via non-equity alliances or joint ventures. A study of 22,156 cross-border alliances formed in 48 industries world-wide over 9 years provides new insight toward understanding religion’s influence on firms’ international market entry mode decisions through the ethical dimension of strategic leadership. This article would fit best under the International Management section for reviewing purposes.     

Fluidity of Regulation-CSR Nexus: The Multinational Corporate Corruption Example

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a relatively undeveloped concept despite its increasing importance to corporations. One difficulty is the possible inexactness of CSR. Another is the apparent reluctance by regulatory authorities and policy makers to intervene in the area. This is largely a result of inhibitions created by traditional approaches to company law with emphasis on shareholder protection and financial disclosure. The consequence is the stultification of independent development of CSR by tying social issues to financial performance. This attitude might not be unconnected to the theoretical and practical challenges in justifying CSR and defining its scope. The underlying impediment is a factual and theoretical failure to distinguish ‘instrumental’ and ‘pure’ (ethical) CSR. This article demonstrates that ethical CSR highlights the role of regulation, and a principal stance is that regulation is neither incompatible nor irreconcilable with ethical CSR. The article argues that cognizance of the intrinsic moral justification of ‘pure’ CSR is required for delineating the scope of CSR as well as for clarifying the desirability and extent of its regulation. It argues that the dynamic history and visage of multinational corporate corruption illuminates the fluidity of the regulation–CSR relationship. The current and widening backlash against transnational corporate corruption is, arguably, a demonstration of the position that regulation and CSR are not mutually exclusive and absolute concepts. This article submits that recognition and application of this ‘ethical’ and ‘instrumental’ CSR distinction is fundamental to the development of CSR and resolution of connected questions of regulation.     

Are Alternative Organizational Forms the Solution to Limit Excessive Managerial Discretion?

Modern corporations have been widely accused of promoting values of managerial autonomy that can result in managerial waste and opportunistic behaviour, leading organizational theorists to suggest the adoption of alternative organizational forms that should normatively and structurally limit such autonomy. However, this mixed-methods study of an alternative organizational form – income trusts (1995–2005) – finds that income trusts were also characterized by excessive managerial autonomy. Managers strategically used the income trust form in discretionary ways such as by providing little information on important decisions to external parties, limiting investors’ right to oppose managerial actions and retaining firm earnings to a great extent. Thus, the article concludes that alternative organizational forms do not necessarily promote an ethical business culture since they are unable to overcome deeply institutionalized values of managerial autonomy.     

Understanding Consumer’s Responses to Enterprise’s Ethical Behaviors: An Investigation in China

The response of consumers to a firm’s ethical behavior and the underlying factors influencing/forming each consumer’s response outcome is analyzed in this article based on information obtained through interviews. The results indicate that, in the Chinese context, the responding outcome can be boiled down to five types, namely, resistance, questioning, indifference, praise, and support. Additionally, consumers’ responses were mainly influenced by the specific consumer’s ethical consciousness, ethical cognitive effort, perception of ethical justice, motivation judgment, institutional rationality, and corporate social responsibility–corporate ability (CSR–CA) belief. Based on these results, a generalized framework of consumer’s ethical responses is developed which provides a number of insightful suggestions upon how to motivate a consumer’s support of a firm’s ethical behavior and to transfer this kind of support into truly positive purchasing behavior.     

The Routes of Moral Development and the Impact of Exposure to the Milgram Obedience Study

This article examines how business students route themselves through the process of cognitive moral development (CMD) to arrive at a more autonomous level of CMD when there is an impetus to do so. In this study, two groups were given Rest’s Defining Issues Test; half the test 1 week and half three weeks later. In between, one group viewed a film of Milgram’s obedience study as a stimulus towards a more autonomous level of CMD. The results of the analysis indicate that viewing the Milgram study produced a positive response regarding subjects’ level of autonomous CMD. However, the response was not uniform across the subject pool. Females showed a greater consistent significant positive response to viewing Milgram while male subjects varied their response contingent upon their functional area of study. While subjects’ functional area of study alone made little difference in the results, when taken in conjunction with gender, significant differences were found between groups. Thus, researchers should take care when investigating differences between subjects’ area of study since gender differences may be present even within an apparently homogenous population-like business students. Marnie Young is currently completing her Masters in Counselling Psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This article was developed from Her Honours BA thesis from Laurentian University where she graduated Cum Laude in 2000. She has presented research papers at the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada and the Academy of Management. Her paper presented to the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada in 2000 won Honourable Mention in the Business Education Division. Jerry Paul Sheppard is an Associate Professor Strategic Management at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. His research focuses primarily on organizational decline, turnaround, survival and failure. His PhD dissertation from the University of Washington in 1989 won the Strategic Management Society Best Dissertation Award. He has published Journal articles in the Journal of Management, Long Range Planning and Social Science Research. His most recent work includes Strategic Management: Competitiveness & Globalization, 2nd Canadian Edition, with Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson, and Rowe.     

An Exploration of the Ideologies of Software Intellectual Property: The Impact on Ethical Decision Making

This article helps to clarify and articulate the ideological, legal, and ethical attitudes regarding software as intellectual property (IP). Computer software can be viewed as IP from both ethical and legal perspectives. The size and growth of the software industry suggest that large profits are possible through the development and sale of software. The rapid growth of the open source movement, fueled by the development of the Linux operating system, suggests another model is possible. The large number of unauthorized copies of software programs suggests that many people do not believe in laws regarding software copyright. There are many and varied views of software as IP, even within the information systems (IS) profession. In this article, four distinct subgroups of IS professionals are identified. The article describes the four subgroups and their respective ideological views on software ownership; it explores the subgroups’ attitudes regarding software laws; and finally, it explains the ethical positions embraced by each subgroup.     

Work-related Attitudes, Values and Radical Change in Post-Socialist Contexts: A Comparative Study

Marcoux argues that job candidates ought to embellish non-verifiable information on their résumés because it is the best way to coordinate collective action in the résumé ‚game’. I do not dispute his analysis of collective action; I look at the larger picture, which throws light on the role game theory might play in ethics. I conclude that game theory’s conclusions have nothing directly to do with ethics. Game theory suggests the means to certain ends, but the ethics of both the means and ends must be assessed separately before any ethical recommendation can␣be made. Marcoux makes several highly disputable assumptions in order to fit résumés into game theory; his analysis does not take into account the consequences that embellishing has beyond the submission and assessment of␣résumés; his argument depends on his claim that a résumé system in which everyone embellishes is attainable; and finally, his argument relies on an idealization of human␣motivation, rather than abstraction. I conclude that candidates should never embellish their résumés.John Douglas Bishop is a Professor in the Business Administration Program at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. His research interests include both business ethics and ethics and capitalism. He is the editor of Ethics and Capitalism, University of Toronto Press, 2000.     

Rethinking the Employees’ Perceptions of Corporate Citizenship Dimensionalization

The article suggests that the four-factor model of corporate citizenship (CC: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities) does not fairly represent all pertinent dimensions of employees’ CC perceptions. Based on an empirical study with a sample of 316 employees, we show that, at least in some contexts, individuals distinguish seven CC dimensions: (1) economic responsibilities toward customers; (2) economic responsibilities toward owners; (3) legal responsibilities; (4) ethical responsibilities; (5) discretionary responsibilities toward employees; (6) discretionary responsibilities toward the community; and (7) discretionary responsibilities toward the natural environment. We do not suggest that this seven-factor model represents all of the (more) relevant CC dimensions in the employees’ minds. We aim to share evidence showing that the four-factor model proposed by Maignan et al. (Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 27(4):455–469, 1999) may be refined, at least when the employees are the stakeholders in question.     

The Shaping of a Society’s Economic Ethos: A Longitudinal Study of Individuals’ Morality of Profit-Making Worldview

This study investigates the processes involved in the shaping of a society’s economic ethos. The discussion of ethics and economics has a very long history across multiple disciplines. The founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, likewise had a keen interest in this topic. However, with the development of economic science, scholarly assessment has shifted toward positive analysis while normative analysis has been left mainly to philosophers. By utilizing the newly developed morality of profit-making scale (MPM), the authors sought to understand how respondents’ economic ethical worldview shifts over time. Specifically, we theorized that the news media’s copious negative coverage of the gasoline price crisis of 2006 would significantly impact individuals’ MPM worldview. The results show that respondents’ explicit attitudes toward MPM were significantly impacted. However, respondents’ more deeply held, implicit economic ethical worldview was only slightly impacted. The authors argue that only patient, long-term explanation and argumentation can permanently affect a society’s economic ethos. Implications and future research directions for business researchers are outlined.     

American and Canadian perspectives on affirmative action: A response to the Fraser Institute

The publication of the Fraser Institute's Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity offers an occasion to review some of the practical and philosophical issues raised by affirmative action policy. Canadian affirmative action programs derive from the American context, which is here reviewed, but do not have the legal recourse available in the American system. Perhaps as a consequence, most Canadian programs have been carried out by governments acting in their role as employers. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has been especially active in developing union perspectives on affirmative action programs, which do raise special concerns for organized labour. Affirmative action raises several basic questions: the importance of proportionality, merit, compensation and role models in determining who is entitled to opportunities in our society. Differences between the Fraser Institute's attitude about affirmative action and attitudes of other social groups, such as the labour movement, lie in their very different assumptions about what constitutes a free society.     

Varieties of Win–Win Solutions to Problems with Ethical Dimensions

The purpose of this article is to help educators and managers learn about a variety of win–win solutions to problems with ethical dimensions. The hope is that the larger the variety of win–win solutions we can consider, the higher the probability that we can find at least one that satisfies both ethical and material concerns. This article is motivated by the experiences of managers who have found that they need win–win solutions because it is very difficult to effectively advocate ethical solutions to problems that lose money or do not make money for their organizations. The purpose of the article is not to build theory or a theoretical taxonomy of win–win solutions, but to gather from eclectic theoretical and applied sources a variety of win–win solutions that can help solve problems with ethical dimensions. Examples of the types of win–win solutions are illustrated. Ethical problems with win–win solutions are also considered.     

Kierkegaardian Confessions: The Relationship Between Moral Reasoning and Failure to be Promoted

Kierkegaard’s theory of pre-ethical, aesthetic, ethical, and religious spheres of moral reasoning was applied to the case of an individual rejected for promotion to full professor. The evaluators seemed to represent the public morality of the profession, assumed that they represented the highest level of moral reasoning, and judged that the candidate represented a private morality based on a lower level of moral reasoning. The article questioned the view that moral reasoning could be discerned from one’s actions. It was paradoxical that different spheres seemed to produce similar kinds of actions, though for differing reasons, making identification difficult. It was easy for the evaluators to confuse spheres representing private moralities and to conclude, based on the candidate’s research record, that she/he was unsuitable for promotion. It was equally difficult for the candidate to discern whether the evaluators’ moral reasoning represented the public morality of the profession, or a pre-ethical need by the evaluators to appear in solidarity with the public morality. This made it difficult for the candidate to know whether the evaluators’ recommendations represented absolute standards that would be applied to any future re-application, or not. The article’s contribution was the identification of different spheres of moral reasoning, the interactions between spheres, and the paradoxical indeterminacy of gauging moral reasoning from moral action. It supported Kierkegaard’s view that the highest truth attainable by an individual was “an objective uncertainty” and that this truth was lost in self-deception when one claimed to have been able to solve the paradox.     

Leadership,Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship

Leaders in today’s world face the challenge of earning the trust and commitment of organizational members if they expect to guide their companies to success in a highly competitive global context. In this article, we present empirical results indicating that when leadership behaviors are perceived as trustworthy through the observer’s mediating lens, trust increases and leaders are more likely to be viewed as ethical stewards who honor a higher level of duties. This article contributes to the growing body of literature about the importance of ethical stewardship in the trust relationship.     

An Exploratory Study of Chinese Accounting Students’ and Auditors’ Audit-specific Ethical Reasoning

This study uses three audit-specific ethical dilemmas to assess the level of ethical reasoning between Chinese accounting students (as proxies for new entrants to the auditing profession) and experienced auditors. A sample of U.S. accounting students is used as a base for comparison. Consistent with expectations based on particularly salient aspects of Chinese national culture, we find the Chinese students’ levels of ethical reasoning to be significantly lower than those of their U.S. counterparts in the two cases that invoked these cultural attributes. In contrast, the Chinese students’ level of ethical reasoning is slightly higher than that of the U.S. students in the third, control case. We further find that the Chinese auditors’ levels of ethical reasoning are even lower than those of the Chinese students in two cases, while not being significantly different in the third. Together, these findings suggest that cross-national differences in auditors’ ethical reasoning depend on the nature of the ethical dilemma and caution against wholesale inferences about ethical reasoning levels in China.