Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

How Relationality Shapes Business and Its Ethics

  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Just as Michael Porter's “five forces” provided a practical analytical tool for describing the forces that shape competitive strategy, so business ethicists ought to provide business leaders with a workable framework for understanding the sources of ethical obligations. The forces that shape competitive strategy vary according to time and industry, but are anchored in an ultimate criteria of profitability. Similarily, ethics can use a set of analytical categories that identify the relevant forces to business ethics on the basis of relationality.

This paper first argues that relationality based on naturalism is the primary, plausible value for ethics. Second, it adapts a tripartite dialectic from scholars William Frederick and Michael Novak to describe the relational categories with which business must contend. Third, it uses these forces in a way similar to Porter's competitive forces to offer an analytical language familiar to managers in order to characterize business ethics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arlow, Peter and Thomas Ulrich: 1988, ‘A Longitudinal Study of Business School Graduates Assessments of Buisness Ethics’, Journal of Business Ethics 7, 295–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boatright, John R.: 1994, ‘What's So Special About Shareholders?’, Business Ethics Quarterly 4, 393–407.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deming, W. Edwards: 1982, Out of the Crisis (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

    Google Scholar 

  • Donaldson, Thomas and Thomas Dunfee: 1994, ‘Toward a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrated Social Contract Theory’, Academy of Management Review 19, 252–284.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorrien, Gary: 1993, The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press, Philadelphia).

    Google Scholar 

  • Frederick, William: 1992, ‘Anchoring Values in Nature: Toward a Theory of Business Values’, Business Ethics Quarterly 2, 283–303.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frederick, William: 1995, Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, R. Edward: 1984, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (Pittman, Boston).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, Daniel R. Jr.: The Twilight of Corporate Strategy: A Compartive Ethical Critique (Oxford University Press, New York).

  • Harris, Errol: 1988, Formal, Transcenental, and Dialectical Logic (SUNY Press, Albany, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Errol: 1992, Cosmos & Theos: Ethical and Theological Implications of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hauerwas, Stanley: 1983, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayek, F. A.: 1988, The Fatal Conceit (University of Chicago Press, Chicago).

    Google Scholar 

  • John Paul II: 1991, Centesimus Annus (Orgins, Washington, DC).

    Google Scholar 

  • Juran, Joseph: 1979, Managerial Breakthrough: A New Conception of the Managers Job (McGraw-Hill, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, Alasdair: 1981, After Virtue (Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana).

    Google Scholar 

  • McMahon, Thomas F. c.s.v.: 1989, ‘Religion and Business: Concepts and Data’, Chicago Studies 3.

  • Novak, Michael: 1993, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (The Free Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Perry, Michael: 1990, Politics, Morality and Human Rights (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, Michael: 1975, Note on the Structural Analysis of Industries, Havard Business School Cases (Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon, Robert: 1993, Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sun-Tzu (Samuel B. Griffith, translator): 1991, The Art of War (Oxford University Press, New York).

    Google Scholar 

  • Werhane, Patricia: 1985, Persons, Rights & Corporations (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheatley, Margaret J.: 1992, Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe (Berrett-Kochler, San Francisco).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan Business School, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109, U.S.A

    Timothy L. Fort

Authors
  1. Timothy L. Fort
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fort, T.L. How Relationality Shapes Business and Its Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics 16, 1381–1391 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005726907404

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005726907404

Keywords

Search

Navigation