Contrasting the behavioural business ethics approach and the institutional economic approach to business ethics: Insights from the study of quaker employers
Journal of Business Ethics 82 (4):835 - 850 (2008)
| Abstract | The article suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly, even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantianism or religious ethics. The article explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The article argues that this approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics, which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and favours behavioural intervention with the individual’s value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics. The article concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics, as encountered in a modern context, can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJohn R. Boatright (2000). Globalization and the Ethics of Business. Business Ethics Quarterly 10 (1):1-6.
Ronald Jeurissen (2000). The Social Function of Business Ethics. Business Ethics Quarterly 10 (4):821-843.
Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto (2009). Consumer Ethics in Japan: An Economic Reconstruction of Moral Agency of Japanese Firms – Qualitative Insights From Grocery/Retail Markets. Journal of Business Ethics 84 (1):29 - 44.
Stephen Brigley (1995). Business Ethics in Context: Researching with Case Studies. Journal of Business Ethics 14 (3):219 - 226.
Michael Schwartz & Heath Spong (2009). Subjectivist Economics and Ethical Business. Journal of Business Ethics 90 (1):123 - 136.
Stephen Maguire (1997). Business Ethics: A Compromise Between Politics and Virtue. Journal of Business Ethics 16 (12-13):1411-1418.
Sherwin Klein (1985). Two Views of Business Ethics: A Popular Philosophical Approach and a Value Based Interdisciplinary One. Journal of Business Ethics 4 (1):71 - 79.
John Stieber & Patrick Primeaux (1991). Economic Efficiency: A Paradigm for Business Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics 10 (5):335 - 339.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads10 ( #106,175 of 548,979 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,979 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
