Abstract
The current discussion of business ethics is nothing new. In fact it has been a topic of common interest to both researchers and top managers since the mid fifties; the focus adjusting to issues and problems of the times. The authors of the article list four themes they believe to be of relevance for future discussion. First, ethics as an instrument of business behavior is entering a new dimension due to negative side effects of economic activities, which are even observed on a global scale and where it is doubtful that governments can adequately manage this complex environment. From this view, ethics becomes a decisive component of efficiency and requires a new way of thinking on the development of the market system and on a new delineation of responsibilities between government and markets. Second, in the process of transformation of the East-European states it seems to be all the more important to emphasize the ethical characteristics which are part of the concept of competition — the gains to the consumer due to the plurality of search and discovery procedures, the capability to correct and absorb wrong decisions, and the specific distributional ethics. Third, business ethics as an element of the firm's “guiding vision” has to be incorporated into its corporate culture, which will foster an institutional ethic of the firm — the joint effect of individual ethics within the history of the firm coupled with time and experience. Fourth, conflicting business philosophies must be judged with reference to the process of communication of business ethics. Summing up business ethics has a micro and macro component and is related to the individual firm as well as to the structure of the economic and social order. Ethics will, however, have a limited effect if it is not accompanied by the change in goals, structures and processes.
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Meinolf Dierkes is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin and Director of the Research Unit “Organization and Technology,” Wissenschaftszenturm Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). He is a member of the Committee on Basic Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences of the National Research Council, Washington D.C. In 1988 the president of the Federal Republic of Germany recognized his contribution by awarding him the Bundesverdienstkreuz. Mr. Dierkes has worked as a consultant to a number of major companies in Europe, establishing management systems to integrate social and ecological considerations in business decision making, developing statements of comparative strategic visions and basic philosophies, as well as designing processes of institutional learning. His most recent book in this field isEthik und Geschäft (co-edited by Klaus Zimmermann).
Klaus Zimmermann is currently professor of economics at the Federal Armed Forces University Hamburg. He was senior economist at the Science Center Berlin during 1976–1985, and assistant professor at the University of Cologne in 1970–1975. His main areas of research are environmental/resource economics, regional economics, industrial economics and public finance.
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Dierkes, M., Zimmerman, K. The institutional dimension of business ethics: An agenda for reflection research and action. J Bus Ethics 13, 533–541 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881298
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00881298