A complementary perspective on business ethics in South Korea: Civil religion,common misconceptions,and overlooked social structures

Following the recent call for advancement in knowledge about business ethics in East Asia, this study proposes a complementary perspective on business ethics in South Korea. We challenge the conventional view that South Korea is a strictly collectivist country, where group norms and low trust determine the norms and values of behavior. Using the concept of civil religion, we suggest that the center of the South Korean civil religion can be seen in the affective ties and networks pervading the economic, political, and social institutions, embedded in and guided by Confucian ideals. We argue that South Korea should be seen not as a collectivist low‐trust society, but rather as an affective‐relational society, in which the relational context determines whether collectivism or individualism prevails. Further, we assert that trust, the cohesive factor of affective ties and networks, has until now been inadequately captured by conventional surveys. Our proposed perspective contributes to a more holistic picture and a more firmly grounded understanding of business ethics in South Korea.     

The business of ethics and the ethics of business

This is an essay in personal business ethics of executives as distinguished from the institutional ethics of corporations. Its purpose is to give practical moral guidance to executives for the conduct of their lives both as corporate decision-makers and as human beings. The pivotal concept in this model of personal business ethics is a direct appeal to the self-interest of executives in their being moral. Our thesis is that generally there is a twofold return on investment in ethics (ROIE) for executives. The first one is related to employee output: by becoming a self-actualizing moral type, executives indicate commitment to excellence. Accordingly, they so manage employees that the latter can also live up to their full potential and excell. And that would increase corporate productivity and product or service quality. The second payback of morality is personal: fully developed, self-actualized managers are generally happier people than those whose growth has been arrested. In brief, moral self-actualization is the same as commitment to excellence and there is a payback in being the best. Return on investment in ethics and return on investment in excellence can both be abbreviated as ROIE. We accomplish the purpose and establish the thesis of this essay by seeking answers to the following questions: What business does ethics have in business? What business does business have in ethics? Is there a return on investment in ethics for executives? and Does being moral help executives become more effective managers? In sketching answers to these questions, we first show why executives need a personal business ethics especially in today's world. Then, we sketch the nature of ethics and of business. After these introductory materials, the body of the paper argues for a personal business ethics for executives by correlating elements of management theory with ethics. Specifically, it links a theory of employee motivation with a scale of values, management character types with moral types, and management leadership styles with morality. Then, the practical technique of life by objectives (LBO) is explained. It can help executives manage their lives more effectively in both the business and ethical sense. We conclude by explaining ideals of excellence which can guide executives in their work and development both as managers and as human beings.     

Theological ethics and business ethics

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique of business from a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical.     

Christ and business: A typology for Christian business ethics

H. Richard Niebuhr's typology of the relation between Christ and culture can function as a heuristic device to identify different approaches to Christian business ethics. Five types are outlined: Christ Against Business, The Christ of Business, Christ Above Business, Christ and Business in Paradox, and Christ the Transformer of Business. This typology may facilitate discussion on the relative adequacy of various theological assumptions about ethical change in business. Louke Siker received her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1987 (dissertation: Interpreting Corporate Cultures: Philosophical and Theological Reasons for Doing Business Ethics in a Hermeneutical Mode). She has taught Christian ethics and business ethics at Wake Forest University and Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include methodology in business ethics. She is the author of An Unlikely Dialogue: Barth and Business Ethicists on Human Work, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1989.     

Blockchain and business ethics

This paper provides, from a business ethics perspective, a basic clustering of the morally (a) favorable, (b) unfavorable, and (c) ambivalent dimensions of blockchain technology and its various emergent applications. Instead of proffering specific assessments on particular aspects of blockchain‐based business models, we aim to offer an initial overview that charters the territory so that future research can bring about such moral assessments in an informed and orderly fashion. The main contribution of this paper lies in identifying several morally ambivalent dimensions of blockchain technology, which we finally link to two strands of business ethics research: ethical and legal aspects of legislation as well as a link to Habermasian corporate social responsibility theory arguing for transparent data production and consumption on the blockchain. We conclude that future research is necessary for moral assessment of the ambivalent cases, since their ethical evaluation changes depending on whether one analyzes them through the lenses of utilitarianism, contractarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics, respectively.     

Marxism and business ethics

I explain how a Marxist would understand and respond to the phenomenon of business ethics. In Section I, I maintain that a Marxist would supplement traditional explanations of the increased interest in business ethics by an emphasis on class needs created by a situation of declining profits. I argue, in Section II, that business ethics might be used to address two needs created by this situation: (1) to legitimate the system of capitalist production: and (2) to discipline individual members of the bourgeoisie so that they will refrain from pursuing their individual interests when these conflict with the interests of their class. In Section III, I argue that there is no guarantee that business ethics will develop to meet these class needs, and that the questions to which an interest in business ethics gives rise may themselves lead to serious and effective criticism of business.An earlier version of this essay was read at a meeting of the Society for Business Ethics, American Philosophical Association (Boston, 28 December 1980), and I am grateful to the participants, especially George Brenkert, for their helpful discussion. The position I present has also benefited from comments on that earlier version by David Bayless, David Schweickart, and Daniel Wikler. I would especially like to thank Thomas Donaldson and Richard W. Miller both for their comments on this paper and for discussions of the topics of Marxism and business ethics.     

Perceptions of business ethics: Students vs. business people

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of business students and of business practitioners regarding ethics in business. A survey consisting of a series of brief ethical situations was completed by 537 senior business majors and 158 experienced business people. They responded to the situations, first, as they believed the typical business person would respond and, second, as they believed the ethical response would be.The results indicate that both students and business people perceived a significant gap between the ethical response to the given situations and the typical business person's response. Students were significantly more accepting than business people of questionable ethical responses, and they also had a more negative view of the ethics of business people than did the experienced business people.The male students were more accepting of questionable ethical responses and saw less difference between typical and ethical responses than did the female students. However, male and female business people appeared to think alike with regard to both typical and ethical responses.Some suggested implications included the idea that businesses need to increase their efforts to promote ethical conduct and to make ethics a well-known priority in all actions and policies. Barbara C. Cole teaches Business Education classes at Foothills Technical Institute in Searcy, Arkansas. Her research is in the areas of business ethics and cooperative learning. She has published in Journal of Education for Business.Dennie L. Smith is Professor of Education at the University of Memphis, formerly Memphis State University. His writing on creativity, teaching strategies, and simulation systems has appeared in numerous journals and books. He has been a consultant to businesses for over 15 years in the areas of organizational development and decision making.     

Implementing business ethics: Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is a problem for many organizations. Organizations must understand that sexual harassment lies within the broader context of sex discrimination and inequality of opportunity in the workplace. Sexual harassment is both an illegal and unethical practice. Companies need to implement a policy which respects the rights of individual employees by prohibiting sexual harassment. This policy need to be clearly stated in the company Code of Ethics and enforced rigorously.Karen A. Crain is a Territory Representative for Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories pharmaceutical company. She has published in a recent Proceeding of the International Conference of theAcademy of Business Administration.Kenneth A. Heischmidt is a Professor of Marketing at Southeast Missouri State University and has published in various professional journals and conferences includingJournal of Advertising, Journal of Professional Services Marketing, Journal of Hospital Marketing, Health Marketing Quarterly andJournal of Education for Business. He has received best paper awards at both the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Business Administration conferences.     

Professionalism: Foundation for business ethics

Professionalism includes the essential contents of other key notions within the field of business ethics. As a term involving the notion of vocation it may be understood as containing a religious content, since vocation refers to a man's most intimate personal decisions, destiny and providence. Professionalism also connotes respect for law and so includes a reference to commercial law as a guide to right conduct. Professionalsim thus lifts the requirements of law to the level of personal commitment.Like an honest act, professionalism may not be easy to define, but you will know it when you see it. As for professionalism's practitioners, like the practitioners of honesty, their art is learned not by seeking definitions of what they do, but by practicing professionalism. Only if this practice becomes an obsession with the Business Aristocracy can we expect professionalism to seize the soul of lesser businessmen and suffuse the entire business community. Thomas E. Schaefer, Ph. D., is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Texas, Permian Basin. He was formerly Head of the Department of Business Administration, University of Alaska, and Dean of Business Administration, Sacred Heart University, Puerto Rico. He has received a Private Sector Award of Pres. Reagan for Extraordinary Contributions to Small Business. His most important publications are: The Process of Management: What Supervisors Do (O.C. Press, 1982); Leadership Through Followership, Business Horizons (September/October, 1982) and many others.Paper presented at the 16th Conference on Value Inquiry, entitled: Ethics and the Market Place: An Exercise in Bridge-Building or On the Slopes of the Inteface.     

OIKOS: Convergence in business ethics

The current focus on corporate culture in managerial theory, on character development in business ethics, and on the work—family relationship in family studies calls for an integrating concept to help us explore the relationship of work, family, and fundamental values. The ancient Greek concept of the oikos offers a basic framework for understanding the ensemble of emotional commitments and faith values underlying ethical action in organizational life. Examination of the interrelationships among the arenas of work, family and faith directs us to the importance of ecclesiologies, faith concepts, and family forms for business ethics. William Johnson Everett is Associate Professor of Ecclesiology and Director of the OIKOS Project on Work, Family and Faith at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta. He is the author of many articles in social ethics as well as Blessed Be the Bond: Christian Perspectives on Marriage and Family (Fortress Press, 1985). He is co-author of Disciplines in Transformation: A Guide to Theology and the Behavioral Sciences (University Press of America, 1979).     

Meta-learning about business ethics: Building honorable business school communities

We propose extending business ethics education beyond the formal curriculum to the hidden curriculum where messages about ethics and values are implicitly sent and received. In this meta-learning approach, students learn by becoming active participants in an honorable business school community where real ethical issues are openly discussed and acted upon. When combined with formal ethics instruction, this meta-learning approach provides a framework for a proposed comprehensive program of business ethics education.Linda Klebe Trevino is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Mary Jean and Frank B. Smeal College of Business Administration, The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the management of ethical-unethical behavior in organizations and justice in disciplinary situations.Donald L. McCabe is Associate Professor of Management at the Graduate School of Management, Rutgers — the State University of New Jersey. His research focuses on decision making and interpretive processes under conditions of uncertainty, and the management of ethical behavior in organizations.     

Ethical decision-making in business: Behavioral issues and concerns

This article examines selected behavioral aspects of ethical decision making within a business context. Three categories of antecedents to ethical decision behaviors (individual differences, interpersonal variables, and organizational variables) are examined and propositions are offered. Moral development theory and expectancy theory are then explored as possible bases for a theory of ethical decision making. Finally, means of improving ethical decision making in firms are explored.Stephen B. Knouse is Professor of management at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. His research interests are in behavioral aspects of business ethics, employment selection, and impression management in organizations. His work has appeared in a number of journals includingJournal of Business Ethics, Personnel Psychology, andPersonnel.Robert A. Giacalone is Associate Professor of Management Systems at the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business, University of Richmond. His work has appeared inHuman Relations, Business and Society Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Group and Organization Studies, Journal of Social Psychology, as well as in a variety of other journals and books.     

On economics and business ethics

Economics has an impoverished view of virtuous human behaviour in general, and corporate social responsibility in particular. We claim that this is due to a particular, albeit currently dominant approach to economics. This approach focuses on the pursuit of wealth through efficient allocation of scarce resources by 'rational' utility-maximizing economic agents and institutions, such as markets, firms and states, in the exclusive pursuit of 'efficiency'. This results in an ethic-free and often inimical approach to virtuous behaviour. However, a different approach to economics, which focuses on sustainable global resource creation and allocation, asserts virtuous responsible behaviour to be part and parcel of economic analysis and performance.     

On business ethics and moralism

Business ethics as an academic field is, not least, about moral criticism and self‐criticism, of business and of business education. However, the business ethics discourse appears to shift between a critique of immorality (which deserves criticism) and a crude moralism. The article explores the concept of moralism with reference to the relevant literature and illustrates its various manifestations with reference to empirical studies. This is followed up by theses for further discussion and research.     

Individual values and business ethics

The necessity for considering individual values when attempting to institutionalize ethics is discussed. Techniques for individual values examination are outlined in the context of their organizational application. Suggestions are made concerning possible mechanisms through which organizations can encourage individual values awareness and concluding remarks emphasize the importance of managerial commitment to the overall effort.Dr. Coye is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Management at DePaul University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, an MBA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a B.Sc. from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He teaches and conducts research in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management.     

The status of business ethics: Past and future

Business ethics, which grew out of religion's interest in ethics in business and management education's concern with social issues, has become an interdisciplinary academic field. Thus far it has centered on teaching undergraduates. The easy work has now been done and the field has reached a plateau. To develop further it requires development on the MBA level, high quality research on new questions, positive models, better interdisciplinary integration, and attention to international business. Ultimately the field will stand or fall on the quality of research those in it produce. Richard T. De George, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Ethics, Free Enterprise and Public Policy; Business Ethics, 2nd ed.; and The Nature and Limits of Authority.     

The ethics of business intelligence

A review of the strategic management, policy, information management, and the marketing literature reveals that many large and medium sized companies now collect and use business intelligence. The number of firms engaging in these activities is increasing rapidly.While the whys and hows of this practice have been discussed in the academic and professional literature, the ethics of intelligence gathering have not been adequately discussed in a public forum. This paper is intended to generate discussion by advancing criteria which could be used as the basis for judging actions of those involved in business intelligence and for creating reasonable policies in this sensitive area of practice.Norm Schultz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation at Colorado State University.Allison Collins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting and Taxation at Colorado State University.Mike McCulloch is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Colorado State University.