The institutionalization of unethical behavior

There is a possibility that the ethical problems that have recently surfaced at General Electric, E. F. Hutton and General Dynamics are not simple anomalies, but the direct result of corporate pressures on individual managers. The author looks at the nature of these pressures, which come from the strategic planning systems in use at most large corporations, and concludes that the current emphasis upon improvements in competitive positioning have led many managers to take actions that are directly contrary to the moral standards, either explicit or implied, of their organizations. LaRue Hosmer is Professor of Policy and Control at the Graduate School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan. He was the founder and president of a company that manufactured heavy equipment for sawmills and papermills. He has been teaching Business Policy, Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship at The University of Michigan since 1972, with visiting appointments during that period at Stanford and Yale. His research interests are in managerial ethics, corporate responsibility and strategic implementation. He is the co-author of The Entrepreneurial Function (Prentice-Hall, 1977) and the author of Strategic Management: Text and Cases on Business Policy (Prentice-Hall, 1982), Formation Planning (McGraw-Hill, 1984), Managerial Ethics (in press) and Making Strategy Work (in press).     

The other 338: Why a majority of our schools of business administration do not offer a course in business ethics

A recent survey indicated that the majority of schools of business administration do not offer courses in business ethics and/or the social responsibilities of business firms. The author examines the reasons for the omission of these courses, and concludes that faculty in the major disciplines and techniques of management do not recognize the complexity of ethical problems or the importance of ethical decisions in the overall management of large business organizations. La Rue Hosmer is Professor of Policy and Control at the Graduate School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan. He has A.B., M.B.A., and D.B.A. degrees from Harvard University, and was the founder and president of a company that manufactured heavy equipment for sawmills and papermills. He has been teaching Business Policy, Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship at The University of Michigan since 1972, with visiting appointments during that period at Stanford and Yale. His research interests are in managerial ethics, corporate responsibility and strategic implementation. He is the co-author of The Entrepreneurial Function (Prentice-Hall, 1977) and the author of Strategic Management: Text and Cases on Business Policy (Prentice-Hall, 1982), Formation Planning (McGraw-Hill, 1984), and Managerial Ethics (in press).     

Profit: Some moral reflections

The issues of profit, its moral meaning, justification and role, need careful examination. Mistakes to be avoided in making moral sense of profit include the assumption that profitability establishes a company's moral rectitude. Profit is too complex a phenomenon to establish any such thing. Steps toward clarifying these issues include distinguishing profit as the goal of the corporation from the larger goals of the economy itself, and clarifying what we mean by profit. Profit often includes the moral or value consideration of having been rightly or fairly earned. This provides one starting point internal to business for formulating standards for business ethics. Paul F. Camenisch (B.A., Centre College of Kentucky; B.D., Yale University Divinity School; Ph.D., Religion, Princeton University) is professor of Religious Studies, DePaul University, Chicago. His writing and research currently focus in applied areas such as business, medical and professional ethics. His articles have appeared in such journals as Hastings Center Report, Journal of Religious Ethics, Business and Professional Ethics Journal, Soundings, Listening, and Linacre Quarterly. His book, Grounding Professional Ethics in a Pluralistic Society, was published by Haven Publications in 1983.     

Should collective bargaining and labor relations be less adversarial?

In this paper I argue that the poker analogy is unsuitable as a model for collective bargaining negotiations. Using the poker game analogy is imprudent, its use undermines trust and ignores the cooperative features of business, and its use fails to take into account the values of dignity and fairness which should characterize labor-management negotiations. I propose and defend a model of ideal family decision-making as a superior model to the poker game. Norman E. Bowie is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware. He presently holds a post as Director of the Center for the Study of Values. He previously was Executive Secretary of the American Philosophical Association. Norman E. Bowie's most important publications are: Business Ethics, Prentice-Hall, 1982 (author); Ethics, Public Policy and Criminal Justice, Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain Publishers, 1982 (co-editor); Ethical Theory in the Last Quarter of the 20th Century, Hackett Publishing, 1983 (editor); Ethical Theory and Business, 1st ed., 1979, 2nd ed., 1983, Prentice-Hall (co-editor); The Individual and the Political Order: An Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy, Prentice-Hall, 1977 (co-author); Towards a New Theory of Distributive Justice, University of Massachusetts Press, 1971 (author). He published numerous articles in Business and Applied Ethics.     

The ethics of insider trading

Despite the fact that a number of economists and philosophers of late defend insider trading both as a viable and useful practice in a free market and as not immoral, I shall question the value of insider trading both from a moral and an economic point of view. I shall argue that insider trading both in its present illegal form and as a legalized market mechanism undermines the efficient and proper functioning of a free market, thereby bringing into question its own raison d'etre. It does so and is economically inefficient for the very reason that it is immoral. Thus this practice cannot be justified either from an economic or a moral point of view.

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Toward the development of a multidimensional scale for improving evaluations of Business Ethics

This study represents an improvement in the ethics scales inventory published in a 1988 Journal of Business Ethics article. The article presents the distillation and validation process whereby the original 33 item inventory was reduced to eight items. These eight items comprise the following ethical dimensions: a moral equity dimension, a relativism dimension, and a contractualism dimension. The multidimensional ethics scale demonstrates significant predictive ability.Dr Reidenbach is the Director of the Center for Business Development and Research and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is the co-author of two books on business ethics and has contributed numerous articles on ethics to various academic and applied business journals. Dr Donald P. Robin, Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing, is co-author with Dr R. Eric Reidenbach of two recent books (1989) on business ethics. Both books, Business Ethics: Where Profits Meet Value Systems and Ethics and Profits: A Convergence of Corporate America's Economic and Social Responsibilities were published by Prentice-Hall. Dr Robin is a frequent lecturer on business ethics and has written several articles on the subject for both ethics and business journals.     

Principled moral reasoning: Is it a viable approach to promote ethical integrity?

In response to recent recommendations for the teaching of principled moral reasoning in business school curricula, this paper assesses the viability of such an approach. The results indicate that, while business students' level of moral reasoning in this sample are like most 18- to 21-year-olds, they may be incapable of grasping the concepts embodied in principled moral reasoning. Implications of these findings are discussed. James Weber is currently an Assistant Professor of Management at Marquette University. He has published articles on managerial values and moral reasoning and the teaching of business ethics in Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy: Empirical Studies of Business Ethics and Values, International Journal of Value Based Management, Human Relations, and Journal of Business Ethics. Sharon Green is currently an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research emphasizes information processing aspects of decision making in governmental, auditing and educational contexts. Her publications have appeared in Accounting Review and Research in Governmental and Non-Profit Accounting.     

Ethics vs. economics: The issue of free trade with Mexico

The authors, one an ethicist and the other an economist, look at the issue of free trade with Mexico and other low wage rate countries from the viewpoints of their disciplines. The conclusion of the paper is that these disciplines differ on their priorities and analytical methods, not on their objectives.LaRue Tone Hosmer is professor of Corporate Strategy and Managerial Ethics at the Graduate School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan. He is the author ofMoral Leadership in Business (Irwin, 1993),The Ethics of Management, 2nd Edition (Irwin, 1991), andStrategic Management (Prentice-Hall, 1984).Scott E. Masten is associate professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Graduate School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan. His work has appeared in theAmerican Economic Review, theJournal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, and theJournal of Law, Economics, and Organization.     

Groups,responsibility, and risk taking in business organizations

Discussions of risk taking in the modern business organization frequently focus upon the behavior of individual moral agents. Here I attempt to identify some of the complexities of risk taking when it is a group phenomenon and to do so in such a way as to shed some light upon the ethics of group risk taking in business organizations. Gregory Mellema is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, where he has taught eleven years. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and subsequently has completed an M.B.A. at the University of Michigan. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Individuals, Groups, and Shared Moral Responsibility, and has published articles in over a dozen journals, including Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophia, and Philosophical Studies.     

When two ‘wrongs’ make a right: An essay on business ethics

Sometimes two wrongs do make a right. That is, others' violations of moral rules may make it permissible for one to also violate these rules, to avoid being unfairly disadvantaged. This claim, originally advanced by Hobbes, is applied to three cases in business. It is suggested that the claim is one source of scepticism concerning business ethics. I argue, however, that the conditions under which business competitors' violations of moral rules would render one's own violations permissible are quite restricted. Hence, the observation that two wrongs may make a right does not give people a broad warrant for ignoring moral standards in their business activities. Gregory S. Kavka is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. He was awarded a NEH Fellowship for Independent Study and Research, 1982–83. His most important publication is: Some Paradoxes of Deterrence, Journal of Philosophy (June 1978).My work on this paper was partly supported by a University of California, Irvine Summer Faculty Research Fellowship. I am grateful to the University of Virginia for use of its library facilities, and to Mike W. Martin, Rick O'Neil, a referee for the Journal of Business Ethics, and participants at the Society for Business Ethics meeting at the Pacific Division APA convention in March 1982, for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Seven Pillars of Business Ethics: Toward a Comprehensive Framework

This article first addresses the question of “why” we teach business ethics. Our answer to “why” provides both a response to those who oppose business ethics courses and a direction for course content. We believe a solid, comprehensive course in business ethics should address not only moral philosophy, ethical dilemmas, and corporate social responsibility – the traditional pillars of the disciple – but also additional areas necessary to make sense of the goings-on in the business world and in the news. These “new pillars,” that we advocate include moral psychology, organizational design and behavior, motivational theory, and a unit on how society, business, and law interact. This last unit builds upon the work of Francis P. McHugh (1988) who urged an integration of “disciplines related to business ethics.” Our seventh pillar would encompass an integration of law, socio-political theory, and policy to demonstrate how business helps construct its own regulatory framework. The concluding recommendation is for a comprehensive “Seven Pillars” of business ethics approach. William Arthur Wines holds a B.S.B.A. with distinction from Northwestern University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan. He is admitted to the practice of law in Minnesota and the State of Washington. His research has appeared in over three dozen journals including the American Business Law Journal, Arizona Law Review, Economics of Education Review, Delaware Journal of Corporate Law, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Journal of Business Ethics, Labor Law Journal, Marquette Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, and The William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law. He is the author of two volumes of readings in business ethics and “Ethics, Law, and Business”, published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. in 2006. This material is subject to various copyright laws. Please do not transmit electronically, quote, or copy without the prior written permission of the author.     

An empirical study of moral reasoning among managers in Singapore

The study reported here sought to examine the ethical orientations of business managers and business students in Singapore. Data were obtained using Defining Issue Test. Analysis of Variance revealed that age, education and religious affiliation had influenced cognitive moral development stages of the respondents. Vocation, gender and ethnicity did not seem to have affected moral judgement of the subjects. Contrary to the general view, both business students and business managers demonstrated the same level of sensitivity to ethical dimensions of decision-making. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed. Jayantha S. Wimalasiri is Senior Lecturer of Business Policy at the National University of Singapore. His primary professional and research interests are in Human Resource Management and Business Policy/Strategic Management. Francis Pavri is Lecturer of Decision Science at the National University of Singapore. He received his first degree in Engineering and Ph.D. in Business Administration. Prior to joining the university he worked at IBM (Singapore) as a systems engineer and later as a systems consultant in a local consulting firm. Abdul A. K. Jalil graduated with Honours in Business Administration at the National University of Singapore. He is currently working as an executive officer in the public sector.     

Business Dilemmas and Religious Belief: An Explorative Study among Dutch Executives

This paper explores the relationship between religious belief and the dilemmas Dutch executives confront in daily business practice. We find that the frequency with which dilemmas arise is directly related to various aspects of religious belief, such as the belief in a transcendental being and the intensity of religious practice. Despite this relationship, only 17% of the dilemmas examined involve a religious standard. Most dilemmas originate from a conflict between moral and practical standards. We also find that 79% of the identified dilemmas stem from a conflict between two or more internalized standards of the executive.Johan Graafland is a Professor of Economics, Business and Ethics at Tilburg University and Director of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Department of Philosophy of Tilburg University. He has published articles in The Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics: A European Review, Philosophia Reformatica, Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Applied Economics, Economics Letters, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Empirical Economics, Journal of Policy Modelling, Public Finances/Finances Publique, Economic Modeling, Journal of Public Economics and others. His current research interests are corporate social responsibility and philosophy of economics.Muel Kaptein is a Professor of Business Ethics and Integrity Management at the RSM Erasmus University, where he chairs the Department of Business-Society Management. Muel is also a Director at KPMG Integrity and Investigation Services. He has published articles in a number of journals, including The Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society Review, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Review and European Management Journal. His most recent books are The Six Principles of Managing with Integrity (Spiro Press) and The Balanced Company (Oxford University Press). His research interests include the management of ethics, the measurement of ethics and the ethics of management. Muel is a Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics.Corrie Mazereeuw-van der Duijn Schouten is a senior researcher at the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. She has several years of experience as business consultant in the field of organizational change and group processes within organizations. Her research interests include leadership, religion and corporate social responsibility. She is currently working on a PhD thesis on religion and leadership.     

A conceptual model of corporate moral development

The conceptual model presented in this article argues that corporations exhibit specific behaviors that signal their true level of moral development. Accordingly, the authors identify five levels of moral development and discuss the dynamics that move corporations from one level to another. Examples of corporate behavior which are indicative of specific stages of moral development are offered.R. Eric Reidenbach is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Business Development and Research at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has written extensively on business and marketing ethics.Donald P. Robin, Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Mississippi, is coauthor with R. Eric Reidenbach of two recent books on business ethics with Prentice-Hall. He is a frequent lecturer on business ethics and is the author of several articles on the subject.     

The transactional ethic: The ethical foundations of free enterprise reconsidered

A review of the evolution of the ethical foundations of free enterprise reveals the essentially utilitarian ethical foundation prevailing today. To enrich those foundations the article attempts to establish the ethical validity of free transactions by relating them to the basic principle of interpersonal ethics: the Golden Rule. The validity of the transactional ethic is presented as an articulation of freedom in a valid social and economic context. Jeffrey A. Barach is Professor of Management, A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. His DBA ('67), MBA ('61), and AB ('56) are from Harvard. His interests include business ethics, business policy and marketing. He has published articles and cases in these areas and on pedagogy. His text Individual, Business, and Society was published in 1977. Recent articles concern social marketing (Business Horizons), management of family firms (Sloan Management Review), and the ethics of hardball (California Management Review).John B. Elstrott, Jr., is the Sponsored Research Coordinator at the Freeman School of Business, Tulane University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado (1975). His interests include business ethics, entrepreneurship, economic development, and environmental economics. He is working on several interdisciplinary research projects including one on economic evaluation of solid waste management alternatives. Dr. Elstrott is an active entrepreneur and serves on the board of several profit and not for profit corporations.     

Writing performance and moral reasoning in business education?

This study investigates the connection of moral reasoning to demographic and performance variables in business education, especially business and technical writing. The moral reasoning construct serves as the foundation for one's decision making when confronted with moral dilemmas. Significant relationships are reported between subjects' writing skill and their moral reasoning scores. This research serves as a foundation for questions about writers' moral reasoning and the ethical decisions each writer makes in written communication. In addition, this study supports further research into the connection between moral reasoning and written communication, given the significant relationships reported and the noticeable shortage of related, data-based research.J. Lynn Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. He is coauthor ofManagement: Theory and Practice, is an active consultant in the SouthWest, and has published over 20 other journal articles and training manuals. He has also been active in designing the curriculum for undergraduate and masters programs in personnel and industrial relations, hotel and restaurant management, and small business administration.Robert Insley is an Assistant Professor of Management and coordinator of the business communication program at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. He has presented numerous papers at national and international business communication and international business conferences, conducts interviewing skills workshops, has published several journal articles, and is presently in the process of co-authoringBusiness Communication Today and Tomorrow.Jaideep Motwani is an Assistant Professor of Management at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has presented numerous papers and chaired sessions at regional, national, and international meetings of the Decision Sciences, Society for Advancement of Management, ASQC, and other professional societies. He has published several journal articles.Imad Zbib is an Assistant Professor of Management at Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri. His teaching and research interests range from production planning and control and manufacturing strategy to international management and business communication. He has presented papers at several regional, national, and international conferences and has published several journal articles.     

The social construction of genetic abnormality: Ethical implications for managerial decisions in the workplace

This paper examines moral issues concerning a firm's use of genetic information about a prospective employee's predisposition to contract occupational and other illnesses. It critically reviews leading social construction literature on genetic abnormality and genetic screening, and it examines the relevance of arguments from justice and meritocratic principles. It concludes that there is a strong moral presumption against genetic screening in employment.Alan Strudler is Research Scholar at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has taught philosophy at Stanford University and California Institute of Technology. His recent writing on professional and corporate responsibility appears inMichigan Law Review andLaw and Philosophy.     

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights From the Study of Quaker Employers

The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. Dr. Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto is researcher in business ethics, organisational economics and economic issues that concern the Old Testament. He is placed at the School of Management of the University of Leicester, UK. He holds two doctorates, one in social studies from the University of Oxford, UK, and one in economic studies from the Catholic University of Eichstaett, Germany. He has widely published on green consumerism and institutional economic issues that concern organization theory, business ethics theory and an economic interpretation of the Old Testament. His publications include the books Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour (Routledge, 2003) and Human Nature and Organization Theory (Edward Elgar, 2003).     

The talmudic concept of “beyond the letter of the law”: Relevance to business social responsibilities

The idea of corporate social responsibility is neither new nor radical. The core belief is that business managers, even in their role as managers, have responsibilities to society beyond profit maximization. Managers, in pursuing their primary goal of increasing shareholder value, have social responsibilities in addition to meeting the minimal requirements of the law. Nevertheless, the call for increased social responsibility on the part of business managers remains controversial. At least two major perspectives on social responsibility can be isolated. The classical view, most closely identified with Milton Friedman, suggests that social responsibility is incompatible with a free enterprise economy. By contrast, advocates of increased social responsibility point out the desirability for voluntary (and at times costly) corporate activities which promote society's well being. The purpose of this essay is to briefly describe both the classical and pro-social responsibility perspectives. We suggest that while important differences in assumptions characterize the two distinct views, there is enough overlap and agreement to move the debate beyond the current stalemate. Specifically, we argue that the concept oflifnim mishurat hadin, an innovative and ancient Jewish legal doctrine which is usually translated as beyond the letter of the law, might serve as a model for modern legal and social thought. We examine talmudic and post-talmudic sources which apply this concept to the area of business ethics, and explore its applicability to the modern situation. Although the business ethics literature rarely refers to Talmudic and rabbinic sources, these texts reflect a sophisticated understanding of business practices and ethical problems. Moses L. Pava, associate professor of accounting is the occupant of the Philip H. Cohen Professorial Chair in Accounting. He has taught at the Sy Syms School of Business of Yeshiva University for the past 5 years. In addition he has taught at Hunter College and New York University. His research interests include financial accounting, business ethics, and the social responsibility of corporations. He has recently published articles in the Journal of Accountancy, Management Accounting, Torah U'Maddah Journal, Managerial Finance, Business Credit, U.S.A. Today.His book, The Shareholder's Use of Corporate Annual Reportsis being published by JAI Press.