Transparent Practices: Primary and Secondary Data in Business Ethics Dissertations

We explore the availability and use of data (primary and secondary) in the field of business ethics research. Specifically, we examine an international sample of doctoral dissertations since 1998, categorizing research topics, data collection, and availability of data. Findings suggest that use of only primary data pervades the discipline, despite strong methodological reasons to augment business ethics research with secondary data.     

Enchantment in Business Ethics Research

Journal of Business Ethics - This article draws attention to the importance of enchantment in business ethics research. Starting from a Weberian understanding of disenchantment, as a force that...     

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 Use of a Behavioral Simulation to Teach Business Ethics

The purpose of this paper is to describe behavioral simulations, develop a rationale for their use in business education, and outline a business ethics simulation developed for the university classroom. First, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of traditional classroom approaches for teaching ethics. Second, we describe simulations and discuss the benefits of a using a business ethics simulation as part of the classroom experience. Finally, we outline the simulation development process and describe the Soy-DRI business ethics simulation.     

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.     

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.     

Ethical Theory in German Business Ethics Research

This article offers an overview over the wide scope business ethics has reached in German speaking countries; works which in their majority are not yet available in English translation. The proposed concepts range from a focus on the individual manager and a focus on moral education of managers, via the procedural model of discourse ethics to pressure group ethics and business ethics from a Christian point of view. Other authors suggest an economic theory of moral behaviour, or see ethics as an assurance for decisions under uncertainty or argue for a more enlightened concept of economic rationality.     

Ethics in Business

The concept of ethics in business is presented through an examination of ethnical theories and through the application of the theories to several case incidents. A set of guidelines and implications for management, intended to stimulate ethics in the practice of business, are presented and discussed.     

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.     

Empirical Business Ethics Research and Paradigm Analysis

Despite the so-called ‘paradigm wars’ in many social sciences disciplines in recent decades, debate as to the appropriate philosophical basis for research in business ethics has been comparatively non-existent. Any consideration of paradigm issues in the theoretical business ethics literature is rare and only very occasional references to relevant issues have been made in the empirical journal literature. This is very much the case in the growing fields of cross-cultural business ethics and undergraduate student attitudes, and examples from these fields are used in this article. No typology of the major paradigms available for, or relied upon in, business ethics has been undertaken in the wider journal literature, and this article addresses that gap. It contributes a synthesis of three models of paradigms and a tabulated comparison of ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions in the context of empirical business ethics research. The author also suggests the likely (and usually unidentified) positivist paradigm assumptions underlying the vast majority of empirical business ethics research published in academic journals and also argues for an increased reliance on less positivist assumptions moving forward.     

The Substance of Jewish Business Ethics

Philosophers generally agree that meaningful ethical statements are universal in scope. If so, what sense is there to speak about a business ethics particular to Judaism? Just as a Jewish algebra and a Jewish physics are contradictions in terms, so too, is the notion of a particularly Jewish business ethics. The goal of this paper is to deny the above assertion and to explore the potentially unique characteristic of a Jewish business ethics. Ethics, in the final analysis, is not like algebra or physics. Specifically, it is argued here that – in terms of substance – Jewish business ethics differs from secular approaches in three very specific ways. Jewish ethics: (1) recognizes God as the ultimate source of value, (2) acknowledges the centrality of the community, (3) and holds out the promise that men and women (living in community) can transform themselves. We define Jewish ethics as the interpretation of the written and oral Torah to determine what God commands us to be and to do. The paper carefully explores this definition and examines its specific implications for modern business ethics.     

Who's Who in Business Ethics Teaching Business Ethics in Post-Communist Prague

Management students at the Economic University of Prague have recently been introduced to the subject of Business Ethics. Lidmila Něemcová, who designed and teaches the course, describes their and her reactions.     

The Status of Contemporary Business Ethics Research: Present and Future

This study provides a general overview of contemporary business ethics research of the last 10 years (1997–2006) and discusses potential future research directions in business ethics based on the overview. Using citation and co-citation analysis, this study examined the citation data of journal articles, books, and other publications collected in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), wherein key research themes in business ethics studies in 1997–2006 and correlations between these themes were explored. The results show that major research themes in business ethics have shifted in the last decade from research on ethical decision making and on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate performance to research on stakeholder theory in business ethics and on the relationship between consumer behavior and corporate social responsibility. The results of this study help map the invisible network of knowledge production in business ethics research and provide important insights on future business ethics research.     

Business Ethics in Belgium

Business Ethics has really taken off in Belgium. The author is Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, and an Associate Editor.