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.     

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE1

Corporate social responsibility (‘CSR’) is often associated with hopes for improved corporate governance. As understood conventionally, however, CSR is conceptually incoherent, practically unworkable, and wholly unjustified. To be compatible with corporate governance, ‘CSR’ needs to be understood not as Counterproductive Stakeholder Regimentation, but as Conscientious Stakeholder Responsibility.     

Social Responsibility and the Utilities

This paper examines recent developments in U.K. utility regulation from a business ethics perspective. The regulatory framework that facilitated privatisation of the utility companies has foundations based upon free market principles involving a transfer from regulation to competitive markets wherever possible. Where competition is not feasible, continuing economic regulation is relied upon, designed to mirror the competitive market to induce, through comparative competition and the price capping mechanism, incentives for greater efficiency. The New Labour Government, having fundamentally reviewed this framework when it came to office, has surprisingly endorsed its basic tenets. However, it wishes to superimpose social responsibility regulations designed to achieve social policy rather than economic objectives. This interventionist approach is in itself in conflict with the free market inspired regulatory framework but additionally, the imposition of social policy objectives creates fundamental ambiguities within the framework for the key stakeholders. The paper concludes that the Government's policy, by eliciting stakeholder confusion and perverse behaviour, could be counter-productive but that ethical theories and frameworks can contribute to thinking in this vital area of the economy.     

Ethical Judgements: Does Gender Matter?

A number of studies have addressed the question, ``Whois more ethical, men or women?'' Using ethicaljudgement as a measure of how ethical a person is,some studies have found that women are more ethicalwhile other studies have found no differences betweenthe sexes. This study investigates the influencesthat a character's gender, the evaluator's gender, andthe interaction between the two genders have onethical judgements. We conducted an experiment wheresubjects (evaluators) read a scenario that describedan action taken by a character. We found someevidence to suggest that both women and men applygender-based double standards when making ethicaljudgements. The widest gap in ethical judgementoccurred between the female evaluator/male charactergroup and the male evaluator/male character group. Consistent with prior research, we found that femaleevaluators made ethical judgements more consistentwith those of experts.

     

Policing Transnational Commerce: Global Awareness in the Margins of Morality

Transnationals operate in what may be called the margins of morality because the historical, cultural, and governmental mores of the world's nation-states are not uniform. There is a gray area of ethical judgment where the standards of the transnational's home country differ substantially from those of the host country. Following the argument of institutional theory in providing stability and meaning to social behavior, in matters of moral conduct the transnational is likely to yield to at least four policing authorities: (1) itself, in terms of the integrity of its management and by decision-making that follows its own code of ethics, (2) other corporations within its competitive set, (3) governmental agencies including those of the host country, and (4) public exposure, which includes the media as well as non-governmental agencies such as offshore watchdog groups. The fourth mechanism, public exposure, is thought to be the most effective in policing transnational conduct.     

Mapping moral philosophies: strategic implications for multinational firms

Strategic managers appear increasingly under pressure from stakeholder concerns regarding social and ethical issues. Partially in response, the supply of ethical decision‐making models has grown rapidly. Business ethics scholars have broadened their scope to incorporate moral philosophies into their research endeavors. Despite these positive trends, the international focus of business ethics research has been slow to evolve. Yet, diverse moral philosophies, often most apparent across international borders, have important strategic implications for multinational firms. The ethical norms pursued by cross‐cultural alliance partners, distributors, suppliers, customers, financiers, and foreign government agencies can create public relations disasters, foster shareholder unrest, lead to consumer boycotts, and impact organizational outcomes. We seek to rectify the deficiency in international business ethics scholarship with two distinct contributions. First, we develop a new cross‐cultural, macro‐level model of societal ethics. Second, we map moral philosophies onto an established framework for assessing socioeconomic environments. These theoretical tools should assist managers of multinational organizations, international policy‐makers, and researchers to recognize and prepare for the ethical consequences of international strategic decisions. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Study of the Adjustment of Ethical Recogntion and Ethical Decision-Making of Managers-to-be Across the Taiwan Strait Before and After Receiving a Business Ethics Education

This study conducted an empirical survey of 126 Business Ethics students in business and management departments within two universities across the Taiwan Strait to evaluate the impact on these managers-to-be of receiving an education in Business Ethics. The results show that, after receiving that Business Ethics education, students in both universities demonstrated significant improvements in the ethical weighting of their individual values, their recognition of ethical issues and their performance as ethical decision-makers. However, in respect of ethical decision-making, the behavior of these students is still sub-optimal, indicating a need for further improvements in the ethical education of managers-to-be across the Taiwan Strait.     

Weak Spots in Business Ethics: A Psycho-Analytic Study of Competition and Memory in Death of a Salesman

The field of business ethics has shown little attention to the dynamics of memory in maintaining moral character. Yet memory is a complex process that involves the repression of some experiences in order to protect the moral integrity of the personality. Without the capacity to repress what one's moral conscience would not accept, the mind can be overtaken by neurotic ambivalence and moral confusion. In the context of business competition, where the pressures for potential gains and losses can be immense, long repressed desires can receive renewed strength resulting in a weakening of moral constraint.In this essay, I use the psycho-analytic theory of repression to investigate the complex, psychological vicissitudes of human memory. The theory of repression is a particularly powerful tool to investigate the moral implications of memory because memories which are repressed – i.e., forbidden consciousness – are done so at the behest of the individual's moral ideals. Experiences that offend these ideals or threaten the integrity of the ego can be repressed. Repression, then, is an infallible index of moral judgement.I will apply the theory of repression to the characters in and story line of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman to elucidate the relationship between memory and ethics in business. Death of a Salesman is well suited for this purpose because the memories of the main characters are central to the play and are inextricably linked to the moral challenge competition in business poses.     

Using Stories to Teach Business Ethics – Developing Character through Examples of Admirable Actions

People have long recognized thatknowing and doing are vastly different. Aperson might be skilled in abstract moralreasoning and do it brilliantly in a classroomsetting but act despicably in everyday matters. Instructing students in ethical principles andmoral reasoning skills is one thing. Increasing their desires to act ethically andto behave in admirable ways is something else. This paper advocates an ancient method of moraleducation that contemporary methods overshadow: the telling of stories. Examples of peopleacting ethically, behaving heroically in a seaof temptations, show young minds what idealslook like in practice and encourage theselearners to act admirably themselves. Anecdotes of moral truths in action appeal tothe mind and the heart, instructing theintellect and increasing the desire to emulatewhat civilization has come to honor as rightand good.     

Evaluating Risk in Business Ethics Case Studies

Business management often involves decisionsabout risks to human health and such cases tendto be central to business ethics courses. Overthe last two decades much development has takenplace in the science of risk analysis andlessons have emerged from this work which willmake a useful addition to the ethicalevaluation of case study material in a businessethics courses.In particular, students need to be familiarisedwith and made cautious of the notion ofacceptable risk.