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Business Ethics as a Field of Training, Teaching and Research in Europe

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Abstract

In this survey of business ethics in Europe, we compare the present state of business ethics in Europe with the situation as described by Enderle (BEER 5(1):33–46, 1996). At that time, business ethics was still dominated by a mainly philosophical, normative analysis of business issues with a maximum of 25 chairs in business ethics all over Europe. It has since expanded dramatically in numbers as well as diversified into many different domains. We find this rich diversity in the conception of business ethics back in the answers of our respondents to every single question. The concepts they propose, the courses they teach, the subjects under research as well as the training and consultancy offered to clients and even the challenges for the future all reflect this diversity. Decisive for the expansion of business ethics in Europe has been the advance of CSR and the official backing of CSR by the European Commission. We further argue that the prevalence and importance of business ethics and CSR differs throughout Europe. A rough approximation based on our survey results and literature review is that it is more important and more developed in core and Nordic European countries and somewhat less in Southern and Eastern European countries. The real East with countries like Belarus and Bulgaria remains a challenge.

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Notes

  1. As one of our reviewers correctly pointed out the first meeting actually took place in 1985, the first business ethics colloquium in 1986; within the EBEN network however 1987 is used as the symbolic point of departure.

  2. For many Jesuit or Jesuit inspired teaching institutions, for instance, a deontological course on business ethics was a mandatory part of training in economics. It is this tradition that inspired the first wave of business ethics professors. The impact of this tradition is visible even today. In their study on business ethics research, Chan et al. (2010) point out that among the top 10 ranked business ethics institutions six belong to Roman Catholic universities.

  3. As one of the reviewers pointed out, the focus on systemic issues did not disappear altogether, because of the ideological divide between the capitalist and the communist system on the contrary, because there were two different economic models.

  4. The divide we illustrate here is of course never as sharp as we propose it. The US tradition, for instance, did not neglect systemic issues altogether. In fact, the ideological battle between capitalist and communist countries invoked a permanent reflection on two economic models; in Europe not everybody followed Marx or Habermas. Von Nell-Breuning, Rich and the Freiburg School (often people with a more religious background) put ethics squarely within the economic system. We owe this point to one of our reviewers.

  5. In training and consultancy however—and that is not surprising—there is a strong dominance of the actor's perspective.

  6. There are currently 50 internationally recognised sovereign states in (or partially in) Europe. All the recognised sovereign states, except Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City, are members of the Council of Europe. Since 2007, 27 of these countries are also member states of the European Union, which means they are highly integrated with each other and share their sovereignty with the institutions of the European Union.

  7. The Vatican is the exception here. Business ethics is part of the curricula in some of the many universities and colleges directly connected to the Vatican and flows directly into Catholic social teaching.

  8. See Argandona (1992, 1996); Bohatá (1992, 1994, 1996); Ciulla (1994); Dunfee (1994); Halme et al. (1994); Hrubi (1996); Kerhuel (1993); Marstrander (1996); Naudet (1995); Nemcová (1993); Tepsiev (1993); van Ginneken (1992); Verstraeten (1993, 1995); Vogel (1993).

  9. Zsolnai (1998) presents an overview of business ethics teaching in eight different European countries. Argandoña (1996) gives an overview of business ethics in Spain. Perrini et al. (2006) is a good introduction into the CSR policy of the European Commission and its implementation by different European governments. A recent, quite interesting contribution is Argandona and von Weltzien Hoivik (2010). Though not really an overview it contains a historically rich analysis of the concept of CSR in different European countries. We will come back to this study later on.

  10. EBEN as a rule does not provide its member list for research and protects the privacy of its members. In this case, we checked that any email addresses used were publically available before the information was given to the students.

  11. E.g. ‘bedrijfsethiek’ in Dutch, Unternehmensethik in German, éthique de l’entreprise, or éthique des affaires, in French, etc.

  12. DeGeorge (2010) gives an overview of semantic difficulties, Garriga and Mele´ (2004) is a proposal to distinguish different conceptions; also Enderle (2010).

  13. There are very few moral philosophers (we found only one) in the editorial board of Social Responsibility Journal, but there are several of them in JOBE and even more in BEQ.

  14. The only sense in which we can defend CSR is then, as a consequence, in terms of the corporations’ interest. More precisely, CSR is reduced to a strategy that is supposed to reduce risks, which allows, according to the sceptical view, to get rid of hypocritical references to ethical concerns. This, however, is according to us, to some extent a category mistake. Admittedly, there is some overlap between business ethics and, for that matter, CSR, on the one hand, and risk management, on the other. But there are also fundamental differences. As soon as the term ‘responsibility’ is used in a sense that refers to commitments and obligations that go beyond ‘legal constraints’, as the EU text explicitly defines CSR, than there is unavoidably some ‘moral’ obligation at stake.

  15. CSR Europe is the European corporate umbrella with respect to CSR, now turned into the CSR alliance. The CSR alliance gradually founded its own national chapters, a process that is still continuing at this moment.

  16. With the recently launched bribery act the UK has taken another lead, this time on bribery and corruption.

  17. See for example one of the websites of the French ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry: http://www.exporter.gouv.fr/exporter/Pages.aspx?iddoc=303&pex=-303, or websites run by militant associations of companies like, e.g., http://www.rsenews.com/public/index.php.

  18. http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Responsabilite-societale-des.html.

  19. This was confirmed by several eastern European participants to our survey.

  20. For some time, the CSR alliance tried to lobby the term CR instead of CSR but we see now a return to CSR as this is the term that historically made it in Europe.

  21. http://www.entreprise-citoyenne.com/.

  22. During the last session of a yearly Forum (based in Lille, France) in which companies share their best practices in terms of CSR, an opinion poll revealed that environment is the first issue that people think of when they hear CSR (www.worldforum-lille.org).

  23. Themes on offer are: ethical codes and norms, management ethics, market ethics, human resources and ethics, leadership, marketing ethics, CSR, corruption.

  24. Löhr and Valeva (2008) distinguish three groups of continental and Eastern European countries. The first group (Belarus, Bulgaria and Slovakia) is characterised by the presence of general ethics courses but no business ethics or more macro oriented economic ethics. The second group (Poland and the Czech Republic) shows clear signs of business and economic ethics being part of the standard curriculum in business education and the last group (Hungary and Rumania) has reached a stage in which business ethics education is integrated in the entire curriculum. Our data provide some support for this analysis though not for the idea that Hungary and Rumania have the strongest developed business ethics education. A further confirmation of this analysis can be found in Rees and Miazhevich (2008).

  25. Pesqueux (2009) points out that CSR and business ethics is still less important in European curricula and accreditations, but at least there is an obvious trend. Vie sociale, Pesqueux (2009), no. 3, p. 142.

  26. http://www.unprme.org/.

  27. An example is http://www.journaldunet.com/management/0510/0510106formation-developpement-durable.shtml.

  28. Few philosophy departments have developed specialized programmes, although there are some exceptions. A very recent initiative, since September 2010, is a Master program at Paris 5 (source: http://master-ethique-et-entreprise.asso-web.com/3+specialite-ethique-et-entreprise.html).

  29. http://www.novethic.fr/novethic/v3/les-formations.jsp?titre=&region=&type=0&stype=&tri=1&dir=1&index=14.

  30. This program was set up in the late 1980s. During its first year (the 1987/1988 academic year), it was still possible for 3,244 students from 11 countries to participate, However, by mid-2010, 2.2 million students have experienced an Erasmus exchange in one of the more than 4,000 higher education institutions in 33 participating countries. (source; http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus/doc1709_en.htm).

  31. See Website HECParis for example (assessed December 2010).

  32. For example: Bonnafous-Boucher and Pesqueux (2005).

  33. E.g. the textbooks edited by Dirk Matten and Andrew Crane.

  34. An overview and presentation of the different recommendations from the CNIL is presented on the French website of Transparency International (http://www.transparencefrance.org/ewb_pages/div/Le_declenchement_d_alerte_ethique.php. See also www.cnil.fr).

  35. Chan et al. (2010) identify some of these stars and research centres for Europe.

  36. Available online at http://www.ethicalperformance.com/csrdirectory/index.php.

  37. The number of companies providing such services has risen from 22 in the first directory to 54 in the last.

  38. CSR information technology services are now offered by 23 companies compared to 12 in the first directory.

  39. See http://www.ethicaltrade.org; http://www.ics-asso.org/; http://www.gscpnet.com/.

  40. See http://www.eco-web.com/reg/index.htm.

  41. A typical example of such a mix is, for instance, HAP consultants (www.hap.dk) a small Danish consultancy firm specialised in sustainability issues but at the same time offering CSR services.

  42. See http://www.sneep.info/. The open letter was supported by a survey among business students which indicated among others that 75% of all students in Germany believe they need more and better ethical knowledge in order to fulfil their future jobs.

  43. Somewhat less prominent but also clearly present is the demand to enlarge business ethics education. The old philosophically centred, normative training structured around case analysis is considered far too limited.

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  1. Center for Economics and Ethics, KULeuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Luc Van Liedekerke

  2. EDHEC Business School, Lille, France

    Geert Demuijnck

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  1. Luc Van Liedekerke
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Correspondence to Luc Van Liedekerke.

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Van Liedekerke, L., Demuijnck, G. Business Ethics as a Field of Training, Teaching and Research in Europe. J Bus Ethics 104 (Suppl 1), 29–41 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1260-3

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