Abstract
There seems to be a proliferation of prizes and rankings for ethical business over the past decade. Our principal aims in this article are twofold: to initiate an academic discussion of the epistemic and normative stakes in business-ethics competitions; and to help organizers of such competitions to think through some of these issues and the design options for dealing with them. We have been able to find no substantive literature – academic or otherwise – that addresses either of these two broad topics and audiences. Our modest aim, therefore, is to suggest an agenda of issues, and to begin to explore and analyse some of the possible arguments for and against various philosophical or practical solutions. Part I explores the challenges facing a prize-organizing committee, including problems derived from what Rawls calls the “fact of pluralism” in democratic societies (reasonable people will always disagree over some basic values, including those relevant to evaluating business practices), and epistemic issues about how we can justify qualitative judgments on the basis of incomplete quantitative data. We also try to identify risks and opportunity costs for ethics-prize granters. In Part II we spell out (a) a range of design options and (b) some advice about how any particular prize-awarding committee might select among these options to best achieve its goals (which typically involve highlighting and publicizing best practices for ethical business).
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achar, R., D. Nitkin, K. Otto, P. Pellizzari and EthicScan Canada: 1996, Shopping with a Conscience: The Informed Shopper’s Guide to Retailers, Suppliers, and Service Providers in Canada (John Wiley & Sons, Toronto).
Berlin, I. (1969). Two Concepts of Liberty, in his Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Crane, A. (1999). Are You Ethical? Please Tick Yes □ or No □ on Researching Ethics in Business Organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 20, 237–248. doi:10.1023/A:1005817414241
Fishman, C. (2006). The Wal-Mart Effect. New York: Penguin
Heath, J. (2006). Business Ethics Without Stakeholders. Business Ethics Quarterly, 16(4), 533–557
Norman W., C. MacDonald. (2004). Getting to the Bottom of “Triple Bottom Line”. Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(2), 243–262
Norman W., C. MacDonald. (2007). Rescuing the Baby from the Triple-Bottom-Line Bathwater: A Reply to Pava. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1), 111–114
Pava, M. (2007). A Response to “Getting to the Bottom of “Triple Bottom Line””. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(1), 105–110
Rawls J. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press
Zadek S., P. Pruzan, R. Evans. (1997). Building Corporate Accountability: Emerging Practices in Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting. London: Earthscan Publications
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Norman, W., Roux, C. & Bélanger, P. Recognizing Business Ethics: Practical and Ethical Challenges in Awarding Prizes for Good Corporate Behaviour. J Bus Ethics 86, 257–271 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9846-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9846-5