Religious Intensity,Evangelical Christianity,and Business Ethics: An Empirical Study

Research on the relationship between religious commitment and business ethics has produced widely varying results and made the impact of such commitment unclear. This study presents an empirical investigation based on a questionnaire survey of business managers and professionals in the United States yielding a database of 1234 respondents. Respondents evaluated the ethical acceptability of 16 business decisions. Findings varied with the way in which the religion variable was measured. Little relationship between religious commitment and ethical judgment was found when responses were compared on the basis of broad faith categories – Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, other religions, and no religion. However, respondents who indicated that religious interests were of high or moderate importance to them demonstrated a higher level of ethical judgment (less accepting of unethical decisions) than others in their evaluations. Evangelical Christians also showed a higher level of ethical judgment.     

Business Ethics and Moral Motivation: A Criminological Perspective

The prevalence of white-collar crime casts a long shadow over discussions in business ethics. One of the effects that has been the development of a strong emphasis upon questions of moral motivation within the field. Often in business ethics, there is no real dispute about the content of our moral obligations, the question is rather how to motivate people to respect them. This is a question that has been studied quite extensively by criminologists as well, yet their research has had little impact on the reflections of business ethicists. In this article, I attempt to show how a criminological perspective can help to illuminate some traditional questions in business ethics. I begin by explaining why criminologists reject three of the most popular folk theories of criminal motivation. I go on to discuss a more satisfactory theory, involving the so-called “techniques of neutralization,” and its implications for business ethics.

A Genealogy of Business Ethics: A Nietzschean Perspective

This article approaches the field of business ethics from a Nietzschean vantage point, which means explaining the weakness of the field by means of providing an etiological account of the values esteemed by the decadent business ethicists therein. I argue that such business ethicists have wandered from their immanent philosophical ground to act as scientists, businesspersons, and preaching-moralists as a way of evading their human self-contradictions. In actuality, this fleeing exacerbates them into a sickness of self-idolatry and self-loathing. I bring in Nietzsche’s approach to the value of truth and his ascetic priest figure to get to the origin of this problem. Moreover, I attend throughout to delimiting the field of business ethics as that branch of ethics that can be taught in business schools. Indeed, the article itself is a movement in this direction, being inherently and intentionally philosophical.     

FOCUS: Business Ethics Research: A Cultural Perspective

Why do certain ethical values and beliefs work within the realities of organisation life, while others do not? Research into corporate culture in its various expressions can provide a means of relating corporate rhetoric to actual performance and provide a deeper understanding of the conditions for practical change. Dr Brigley is a member of the Centre for the Study of Organisational Change in the School of Management, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY. He wishes to acknowledge the benefits received from discussion with his colleagues in the Centre and especially with its Director, Dr Paul Bate.     

Towards Authenticity: A Sartrean Perspective on Business Ethics

Taking a Sartrean existentialist viewpoint towards business ethics, in particular, concerning the question of the nature of businesspersons’ moral character, provides for a dramatically distinct set of reflections from those afforded by the received view on character, namely that of Aristotelian-based virtue ethics. Insofar as Sartre’s philosophy places human freedom at center stage, I argue that the authenticity with which a businessperson approaches moral situations depends on the degree of consciousness he or she has of the various choices at stake. Finally, I consider some practical changes in business ethics education, managerial decision-making, and business organizations that Sartrean reflections might prompt.     

Business Ethics Research As Dialogue: A European Perspective

Britain's Economic and Social Research Council offered criteria for excellence in research which appear to express a shared basic idea of research–as–dialogue. This approach does not appear to be met very well by business ethics research in the USA or the UK, but it was seen to be impressively present in some of the German contributions to the European Business Ethics Network conference held in Frankfurt last year. Dr Collier analyses the conditions which may underlie this difference of approach and considers the contribution of modern "discourse ethics to the process of dialogue, concluding that dialogue "is an essential characteristic of research excellence", and that without it we therefore fail to meet both our own standards and the needs of the business community". Dr Collier is Lecturer in Management Studies the Judge Institute of Management Studies at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College.     

David Fritzsche: Business Ethics: A Global and Managerial Perspective

Teaching Business Ethics -     

A Citation Analysis of Business Ethics Research: A Global Perspective

The paper documents the post-war retrenchment and failure of the post-war British Consumer Co-operative Movement. In contrast to the general failure one CEO, Terry Thomas stands out both for his success in co-operative rebranding and returning to profitability the UK Co-operative Bank and because he alone amongst the top echelons of the Co-operative Groups Management based his strategies on a clearly articulated philosophy based on his understanding of the values and purpose of the co-operative movement rooted in its historical traditions grounded in the writings and achievements of Robert Owen, The paper goes on to provide a case study of the bank’s process of transformation from loss-making subsidiary to the first positive co-operative national brand in the post-war period of its history. The author argues that lack of appropriate vision based on the founding values and purposes of the Co-operative Movement is the principal reason for the management’s and governance failures that have beset the UK Co-operative Group. Instead of using the past to help in understanding the present and planning for the future, the UK Co-operative Group Leadership ignored it or worse used the past successes to congratulate itself and disguise its manifest failures. In this, they were supported by an uncritical Co-operative Union (later renamed Co-operatives UK). Davis argues large co-operatives cannot be managed by a civil service responsible to an elected board. Co-operatives need a servant-leadership model of professional management dedicated to the transformational goals set by the founders of the co-operative movement. This needs a radical rethink and promotion of co-operative management education and a dedicated executive recruitment that seeks out value-based professionals whose attitudes and values are compatible with Co-operative values, ownership and purpose.     

Weaning Business Ethics from Strategic Economism: The Development Ethics Perspective

For more than three decades, business ethics has suggested and evaluated strategies for multinationals to address abject deprivations and weak regulatory institutions in developing countries. Critical appraisals, internal and external, have observed these concerns being severely constrained by the overwhelming prioritization of economic values, i.e., economism. Recent contributions to business ethics stress a re-imagination of the field wherein economic goals are downgraded and more attention given to redistribution of wealth and well-being of the weaker individuals and groups. Development ethics, a lesser known field of normative enquiry, already offers nuanced justifications against economism which business ethicists can use in their current attempts to wean the field from old habits.     

A Chinese Perspective: Business Ethics in China Now and in the Future

China now manufactures or assembles over 50% of the world’s products. However, the world has been reeling from daily accounts of defective “Made in China” products. China has been at the forefront of growing concern, not only about its products and enterprises, but also about its business ethics. This article analyzes recent events connected with the Made in China label from the perspective of evolving Chinese business ethics. Part 1 analyzes three of these events. Part 2 details and analyzes the state of business ethics in China today. Part 3 concludes by exploring the future of business ethics in China. The main conclusion is that business ethics in China faces two kinds of ethical challenges: how to restrict the lawless in as short a period of time as possible and how to protect and advance the interests of employees, investors, and the public through corporate management and public administration.     

A Social Exchange Perspective on Business Ethics: An Application to Knowledge Exchange

An extensive body of literature in sociology and anthropology has shown that different societies have developed different structures for exchange of items such as goods, status and information. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how social exchange theory can help illuminate many of the underlying bases of different ethical perspectives in debates about social exchanges. Social exchange theory is applied to three common types of knowledge exchange – R&D joint ventures, commercial intellectual property exchange and academic exchange. Two key factors that underlie different ethical perspectives are shown to be differences in structures for social exchange and differences in views of the alienability of knowledge from its originator.     

Business Students and Ethics: A Meta-Analysis

Given the proliferation of research regarding the ethical development of students in general, and business students in particular, it is difficult to draw conclusions from the contradictory results of many studies. In this meta-analysis of empirical studies from 1985 through 1994, the relationships of gender, age and undergraduate major to the ethical attitudes and behavior of business students are analyzed. The results indicate that female students exhibit stronger ethical attitudes than males. The same is also true for older versus younger students. However, the relationship with undergraduate major is still difficult to interpret.     

Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education

Unethical conduct has reached crisis proportions in business (Walker et al., Wall Str J East Edn, 258(37):A1–A10, 2011) and on today’s college campuses (Burke et al., CPA J, 77(5):58–65, 2007). Despite the evidence that suggests that more than half of business students admit to dishonest practices (McCabe et al. 2006), only about 5 % of business school deans surveyed believe that dishonesty is a problem at their schools (Brown et al., Coll Stud J A, 44(2):299–308, 2010). In addition, the AACSB which establishes standards for accredited business schools has resisted the urging of deans and business experts to require business schools to teach an ethics class, and fewer than one-third of businesses schools now teach a business ethics course at the graduate or undergraduate levels (Swanson and Fisher, Advancing Business Ethics Education, 2008). In this paper we briefly introduce the status of business ethics education and report the results of a survey of business students, deans of the top business schools, and business ethics subject matter experts about ten ethical outcomes. We then offer five specific recommendations to encourage business ethics faculty and decision makers to improve the teaching of business ethics.