Zygmunt Bauman is arguably the most well-known theorist in postmodern ethics. He argues that to develop and enforce universal ethical laws or codes leads to an abdication of individual moral responsibility. Actors rely on external rules and a rational consideration of costs and benefits rather than on moral impulse. In order to recognize and act upon moral impulse, the moral agent must both recognize and understand the Other. We operationalize these ideas, applying them to the development of advanced information technology (...) (AIT) in organizations. We propose that a stakeholder theory of enabling can be used to formulate processes that will give form and voice to the Other by providing mechanisms for face-to-face interactions and dialogue. Applying the principles of affirmative postmodern ethics through an enabling stakeholder oriented system development process explicitly allows for the examination of moral concerns which might otherwise be overlooked, ignored, or silenced. (shrink)

There are varying opinions about whether or not the field of business ethics has a history or is a development of more modern times. It is suggested that a book by a Dominican Friar, Johannes Nider, De Contractibus Mercatorum, written ca. 1430 and published ca. 1468 provides a basis for a history of over 500 years. Business ethics grew out of attempts to reconcile Biblical precepts, canon law, civil law, the teachings of the Church Fathers, and the writings of early (...) philosophers with the realities of expanding economic activity. Nider's background is discussed as well as his book as an example of incunabula.Nider was one of the Scholastics who provided a link between Aristotle and later Reformation thinkers. In Nider we find caveat venditor as his moral guide to merchants as well as other surprisingly modern ideas such as justice in exchange; restitution for defective goods; the market as the final arbiter of value; and the importance of creating utility in products. (shrink)

The question of corporate moral responsibility – whether corporate bodies can be held morally responsible for their actions – has been debated by a number of writers since the 1970s. This discussion is intended to add to that debate, and focuses for that purpose on our understanding of the organisation. Though the integrity of the organisation has been called into question by the postmodern view of organisations, that view does not necessarily rule out the attribution of corporate agency, any more (...) than the postmodern view of the person rules out the attribution of individual agency. The postmodern view is opposed to a reifying, metaphysical view of corporate agency, but a semantic view of corporate agency would seem to sit more comfortably with it. A bigger problem for the idea of corporate moral responsibility arises from the fact that in Kantian terms organisations are not ends in themselves. In that sense they are not like persons, and this must limit their autonomy, and their responsibility. This aspect of organisations also limits their punishability. For these reasons corporate moral responsibility must be seen as more limited than the responsibility of persons. (shrink)

Both Adam Smith and Herbert spencer, albeit in quite different ways, have been enormously influential in what we today take to be philosophies of modern capitalism. Surprisingly it is Spencer, not Smith, who is the individualist, perhaps an egoist, and supports a "night watchman" theory of the state. Smith's concept of political economy is a notion that needs to be revisited, and Spencer's theory of democratic workplace management offers a refreshing twist on contemporary libertarianism.

Although there are suggestions that the environmental attitudes of men and of women differ, there have been few studies that study and evaluate these differences at the workplace. Given the claim of Ecofeminist writers about the environmental superiority of women's environmental attitudes, and the proclaimed need of business to change attitudes and behaviour with regard to the environment, this is a surprise. The paper is based on 1022 (37% from women) questionnaires which were collected in a U.K. pharmaceutical company, and (...) it compares the empirical results with environmental attitude archetypes, such as those prescribed by O'Riordan. However, the attitude clusters that were found do not correspond greatly with such theoretical modes of environmental ethics. Instead, it appears that women were more likely to be actively involved in environmental behaviour, and showed greater scepticism towards the role of technology in the search for solutions to environmental problems. In addition, men sought to a much greater extent a consistency between an environmental rationality and their behaviour. Men's attitudes were also much more influenced by their position in the organisational hierarchy. There were few significant differences across age groups. (shrink)

In this paper a corporate social responsibility audit is developed following the underlying methodology of the quality award/excellence models. Firstly the extent to which the quality awards already incorporate the development of social responsibility is examined by looking at the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the European Quality Award. It will be shown that the quality awards do not yet include ethical aspects in relation to social responsibility. Both a clear definition of social responsibility and an improved audit instrument (...) are required. A definition and an audit instrument are developed which stimulate movement in that direction and help organisations to reflect on their position in relation to social responsibility. (shrink)

This article develops a multidimensional approach for the investigation of the ethical codes of professional associations. The authors: (a) examine various ethical frameworks to identify ethical constructs, (b) select ethical constructs to apply to the assessment of professional codes of ethics, (c) content analyze conceptual and descriptive similarities and differences across a large sample of professional codes of ethics, (d) address organizational variables that affect the development of ethical codes, and (e) investigate through survey research the beliefs and attitudes of (...) association leadership toward ethical code issues. The content analysis and survey research results have implications for association leadership, its membership, public policy makers, the general public and for future research. (shrink)

This study draws on Kohlberg''s Cognitive Moral Development Theory and Hofstede''s Culture Theory to examine whether cultural differences are associated with variations in ethical reasoning. Ethical reasoning levels for auditors from Australia and China are expected to be different since auditors from China and Australia are also different in terms of the cultural dimensions of long term orientation, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism. The Defining Issues Tests measuring ethical reasoning P scores were distributed to auditors from Australia and China (...) including Hong Kong and The Chinese Mainland. Results show that auditors from Australia have higher ethical reasoning scores than those from China, consistent with Hofstede''s Culture Theory predictions. (shrink)

In this article two problems with the recently developed "practice or virtue approach" to business ethics are discussed. The first problem concerns an alleged harmony between common demands of morality (generally understood) and the internal goods of actual business practice. The claimed harmony is strong in essence since it holds that the role expectations a good manager has to live up to, do in fact coincide with what morality demands. The second problem is related to the first and concerns the (...) alleged relevance of a virtue perspective for business ethics. According to the virtue perspective discussed in this article, moral reasoning should take actual practice, and only actual practice, as a point of departure. In so doing ethics is claimed to become insulated from e.g. putting irrelevant demands on practitioners. Such demands are understood as based on abstract principles alien to the practice in question. The thesis of this article is that neither of the above mentioned two claims are plausible. This is so basically because one needs to turn elsewhere than to actual business practice in order to detect a morally laden notion of managerial goodness. (shrink)

In business ethics literature, debate over a special ethics generally has framed examination of the rules governing business. By constructing a dilemma faced by proponents of a special ethics, I argue that this framing is misguided. Proponents must adopt either an insular or a derivative conception. The former, the view that business is insulated from moral rules, is problematic because arguments used to support it force proponents to accept the idea that each aspect of life is insulated from moral rules. (...) This idea, however, renders philosophically insignificant the claim that business has a special ethics. Proponents no longer make a claim about business, but, rather, a relativistic claim about ethics in general. The derivative conception is the view that business is a set of circumstances that bear on the application of moral rules. This, however, is true of each aspect of life, and is simply an application of the principle 'ought implies can'. The result is that there is nothing special about this sense of a special ethics. Despite lacking specialness, however, the derivative conception provides proper framing for examination of the rules governing business. It subjects business to moral rules, but, also, accounts for the challenging circumstances businesspersons face. (shrink)

Ma and Sun have recently argued that some forms of insider trading are ethically acceptable. We argue that the authors fail to prove three key premises of their argument, which is therefore unsound.

The article deals with the sociocultural and historical background of the Olivencia Report and relates this to the document's content, particularly, to its recommendations for Spanish Boards. A discussion of the distinctively Spanish understandings of loyalty, due diligence and transparency is included. The work ends with insights into parallelisms between corporate governance and political government, specifically on the role of culture, democratic representation and accountability, the distribution of power, the protection of property rights and equality.

This paper explores the relationship between organizational size, structure and the strength of organization members'' ethical predispositions. It is hypothesized that individuals in smaller, more flexible, organic organizations will display stronger ethical predispositions. Survey results from 209 individuals across eleven organizations indicate that contrary to expectations, larger, more rigid, mechanistic structures were associated with higher levels of ethical formalism and utilitarianism. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Abuse of authority is an unsolved problem in the new institutional theory of the firm. This paper attempts a double attack to this problem by developing a contractarian view of corporate codes of ethics. From the ex-ante standpoint the paper elaborates on the idea of a Social Contract based on Co-operative Bargaining Games and deduces from it the fair/efficient 'Constitution' of the firm endorsed by means of a well-devised corporate code of ethics. From the ex-post standpoint, codes of ethics are (...) proved to be self-enforcing norms, by showing how they put at work the mechanism of a Repeated Game of Reputation within hierarchical transactions (firms) characterised by incomplete contracts and unforeseen events. To accomplish this task a theory of rationality in the face of unforeseen contingencies is sketched by working out the idea that the domain of a principle of ethics defines a fuzzy event, i.e. an event to which also the ex-ante unforeseen, unimaginable states of the world belong to a certain degree. (shrink)

Financial and cost accounting information is processed by decision-makers guided by their particular need to support decisions. Recent technological advances impacting on information as well as organizations such as the European Community mandating financial reporting requirements for many countries is rapidly changing the landscape for decision making using accounting information. Hence, the importance of individuals'' decision making is more important than it was previously. These decisions are also influenced by individuals'' ethical beliefs. The Throughput Modeling approach to cultural and ethical (...) concerns provides a way of dealing with accounting information processed through various pathways by decision-makers. This modeling approach captures different philosophical perspectives from which to understand what is involved in "thinking scientifically." In the Throughput Modeling approach, pathways highlight the importance of how different philosophical perspectives may be used by individuals in arriving at a decision. This paper highlights key concepts involved in rethinking the basis of moral decision making in terms of an underlying process, rather than focusing on the application of principles or the development of a virtuous character. Examples are provided from both English and Spanish settings to help emphasize the importance of modeling ethical decision making globally. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between national culture and ethical decision making. Established theories of ethics and moral development are reviewed and a culture-based model of ethical decision making in organizations is derived. Although the body of knowledge in both cross-cultural management and ethics is well documented, researchers have failed to integrate the influence of cultural values into the ethical decision-making paradigm. A conceptual understanding of how managers from different nations make decisions about highly ethical (...) issues will provide business ethics researchers with a sound theoretical foundation upon which future empirical inquiry can be based. (shrink)

As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case of Egypt illustrates some (...) divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

This paper examines the case of the internal auditor from a sociological and ethical perspective. Is it appropriate to extend the designation of professional to internal auditors? The discussion includes criteria from the sociology literature on professionalism. Further, professional ethical codes are compared. Internal auditors' code of ethics is found to have a strong moral approach, contrasting to the more instrumental approach of certified professional accountants. Internal auditors are noted as using their code of ethics to help resolve professional ethical (...) dilemmas. (shrink)

It is common for organizational theorists as well as business practitioners to speak of an organization''s visions, strategies, goals and responsibilities. This implies that collectivities have competencies normally attributed to individuals, i.e. to reflect, evaluate, learn and make considered choices. The article provides a series of reflections on the concept of consciousness in an organizational context. It is argued that, under certain conditions, it is both meaningful and efficacious to ascribe the competency for conscious and intentional behavior to organizations. The (...) arguments provided are based on empirical observations, common sense and deductive reasoning. (shrink)

In recent years a series of developments in apparently loosely coupled domains have contributed to the development of new and vital perspectives on how to manage complex social systems such as corporations. These developments include improved communications technologies, increased awareness by constituencies of their potentials for influencing corporate behaviour, increased complexity and reduced transparency in large, heterogeneous organisations, a corresponding reduction in the capacity of traditional accounting and reporting systems to reflect organisational performance, new demands from employees as to their (...) work environments, from customers as to ecological and ethical sensitivity, from civil society and governments as to social and environmental accountability etc.A result is a major shift in the way organisations are choosing to observe themselves and to describe, measure, evaluate and report on their performance. From a focus on efficiency and control to a values-based perspective on management, corporate identity and success. And from a focus on legal compliance and financial performance to a focus on corporate social and ethical responsibility and accountability. (shrink)

Despite the widespread agreement that the ontology of the marketing discipline is exchange, marketing ethics researchers have largely adopted a monadic viewpoint of ethical decision making. In this research, an interactionist approach is adopted in order to introduce a dyadic perspective of un/ethical decision making. The dyadic model includes each channel member's individual, situational and decision process factors linked by relationalism, an emerging paradigm in marketing channels. Relationalism is represented as a discriminating variable between perceived ethical dilemma and decision behaviour. (...) Finally, a number of theoretical propositions are presented and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

What follows is a dialogue, in the Platonic sense, concerning the justifications for "business ethics" as a vehicle for asking questions about the values of modern business organisations. The protagonists are the authors, Gordon Pearson – a pragmatist and sceptic where business ethics is concerned – and Martin Parker – a sociologist and idealist who wishes to be able to ask ethical questions of business. By the end of the dialogue we come to no agreement on the necessity or justification (...) for business ethics, but on the way discuss the uses of philosophy, the meanings of integrity and trust, McDonald''s, a hypothetical torture manufacturer and various other matters. (shrink)

Philosophers generally agree that meaningful ethical statements are universal in scope. If so, what sense is there to speak about a business ethics particular to Judaism? Just as a Jewish algebra and a Jewish physics are contradictions in terms, so too, is the notion of a particularly Jewish business ethics. The goal of this paper is to deny the above assertion and to explore the potentially unique characteristic of a Jewish business ethics. Ethics, in the final analysis, is not like (...) algebra or physics. Specifically, it is argued here that – in terms of substance – Jewish business ethics differs from secular approaches in three very specific ways. Jewish ethics: (1) recognizes God as the ultimate source of value, (2) acknowledges the centrality of the community, (3) and holds out the promise that men and women (living in community) can transform themselves. We define Jewish ethics as the interpretation of the written and oral Torah to determine what God commands us to be and to do. The paper carefully explores this definition and examines its specific implications for modern business ethics. (shrink)

Using a sample of over 700 business people and students, this study tested the premise of promise-keeping as a core ethical value in the work place.The exercise consisted of in-basket planning for layoffs within an organization. Only one of the five employees within the group had been given an express commitment/promise of continued employment for a two year period. The layoffs were being considered six months after the two year promise had been made. All five employees were performing their jobs (...) adequately, and each had either personal or work attributes representing competing values that would have made it difficult to choose among them. (shrink)

The debate concerning corporate moral agency is normally conducted through philosophical arguments in articles which argue from only one point of view. This paper summarises both the arguments for and against corporate moral agency and concludes from this that the arguments in favour have more weight. The paper also addresses the way in which the law in the U.K. and the U.S.A. currently views this issue and shows how it is supportive of the concept of corporate moral agency. The paper (...) concludes by considering the implications of the debate for business ethics in general, and stakeholder theory and virtue ethics in particular. (shrink)

This paper examines workplace surveillance and monitoring. It is argued that privacy is a moral right, and while such surveillance and monitoring can be justified in some circumstances, there is a presumption against the infringement of privacy. An account of privacy precedes consideration of various arguments frequently given for the surveillance and monitoring of employees, arguments which look at the benefits, or supposed benefits, to employees as well as to employers. The paper examines the general monitoring of work, and the (...) monitoring of email, listservers and the World Wide Web. It is argued that many of the common justifications given for this surveillance and monitoring do not stand up to close scrutiny. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the thesis that ethics counselors constitute a new priesthood in the pejorative sense of this term. In defense of the thesis, an account is given of the diverse variety of fundamental ideas about ethics or morality. The underlying argument is simply that there is such a diversity of opinion about so many fundamental issues that most ethical appraisals, especially in committees, are probably very shallow and barely warranted. Following this negative work, (...) an attempt is made to try to find some positive benefits from the work of ethics counselors. Some potential benefits are identified, but there is a need for empirical research in order to construct a more persuasive case for such work. In the penultimate section of the paper I addressed some of my own second thoughts about the discussion and some provocative suggestions that friends gave me about earlier drafts. (shrink)

In practice, the relationship between business and ethics is not well-settled. In the past, organisations have developed an interest in setting value charts but this has been approached from a purely managerial perspective following the momentum and interest aroused by research on organisational cultures. Although interest in managing organisational cultures has slowly died down, for both theoretical and practical reasons we argue that there are feasible ways to explore values as part of an organisational culture. Indeed it is our claim (...) that it is feasible and productive to discuss values within organisations. However, rather than developing sophisticated theoretical frameworks, more efforts should be put into thinking about the conditions under which participants can enter into productive dialogue. It is our claim that if processes are carefully examined people within organisations can make better sense of their work and discover their own perspective to account for what they actually do and to project themselves into what they think they should be doing. Thus, values identified within the organisation can eventually reach a point where they become an expression of a shared commitment. The experience we describe aims to illustrate only one example of a concrete application of this approach. (shrink)

Social attitudes toward usury (here defined using the archaic meaning as the taking of interest on loans) have changed dramatically over the centuries. From antiquity until the Protestant Reformation, usury was regarded as an inherently evil activity. Today, with few exceptions, usury is met with moral indifference. Modern objections to usury are limited to protest against "excessive" interest rates rather than interest per se. With this change in focus, the very meaning of the term "usury" has also changed. Many early (...) pronouncements against the taking of interest emphasized the plight of the poor, but ironically, the poor actually pay the highest rates of interest in the modern American economy. Despite the universality of usury, some socio-economic subcultures still manage to avoid the taking or giving of interest. Orthodox branches of both Judaism and Islam have maintained bans on usury throughout the centuries and up to the present time. This is especially interesting in the case of Judaism, given the popular cultural image of the Jew as usurer. Jewish free loan systems may actually offer a model for modern loan programs that can be designed to aid poor borrowers, who are frequently shut out of mainstream financial services. (shrink)

This paper examines what, if anything, "Eastern philosophy" can teach us about business ethics. The whole idea of "Eastern ethics" or so-called "Asian values" is suspect on a number of scores. The paper argues that It is better to refer to specific ideas of particular thinkers influential within one country or tradition. The paper concentrates on the philosophy of two such thinkers – Watsuji Tetsuro of Japan and Confucius. When this more "micro" approach is adopted, we can learn some important (...) lessons with respect to the meaning of trust, the longterm nature of relations, and ethics that extend far beyond the limited idea of rights. The paper considers these lessons in the business context. (shrink)

In his 1981 article "What is 'business ethics'"? Peter Drucker maintains that the then current business ethics literature is a form of casuistry, and it provides an illegitimate argument for business apologists, while it also unjustly bashes business. I agree with W. Michael Hoffman's and Jennifer Mills Moore's criticisms of Drucker's article. However, by limiting themselves to this article, rather than considering Drucker's management works, they have missed an opportunity to benefit from his acknowledged practical wisdom. In this paper, I (...) seize the opportunity to show that Drucker takes business ethics seriously, and I develop his position on business morality. His view of business management responsibility and the related notion of a just organization is seen to be essentially Platonic. (shrink)

This paper examines the self-interested reasons that businesses can have for ethical behaviour. It distinguishes between economic and non-economic reasons and, among the latter, notes those connected with the self-esteem of managers. It offers a detailed typology of prudential reasons for ethical behaviour, laying particular stress on those to do with avoiding punishment by society for wrongdoing and, more particularly still, stresses the role of campaigning pressure groups within that particular category of reasons. It goes on to suggest that because (...) of their occupation of the moral high ground, campaigning groups are well placed to damage the self-esteem of managers and that this is why those groups seem able to exert an influence that goes beyond their somewhat limited capacity to inflict economic damage upon businesses. The paper concludes with the suggestion that we may be witnessing a virtuous spiral whereby rising public expectations of morality in business lead to ever increasing moral commitments by business that then cause those expectations to rise still further. (shrink)

This paper attempts to mediate between the extremes of a managerial conception of business ethics which subordinates it to management and a political conception which subordinates it to political philosophy. The mediated position arrived at sees the central focus of business ethics in the intersection of micro-managerial concerns with macro-political ones provided by the task of determining morally optimum forms of business. Involvement with the macro rules out subordination to management while, conversely, involvement with the micro rules out subordination to (...) political philosophy. Moreover, such is the (increasing) social importance of business, that business ethics can have at least co-equal explanatory status with political philosophy as a discipline. (shrink)

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The FCPA is the first and only statute prohibiting bribery and other corrupt business practices by U.S. citizens and companies conducting business overseas. This paper provides an overview of the FCPA during the two decades of its existence. More specifically, the objectives of this paper are four-fold. First, the paper provides background information about the FCPA of 1977 and subsequent amendments in 1988. Second, the paper (...) discusses the enforcement of the FCPA since its passage by examining the number of cases prosecuted under the FCPA and the respective penalties imposed. Third, the paper discusses the economic impact of the FCPA by addressing whether the FCPA places U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage. Fourth, the paper provides public policy recommendations to expand the reach and scope of the FCPA. It covers efforts to criminalize bribery through multilateral organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization of American States (OAS). It also covers bilateral arrangements and efforts by non-governmental organizations such as Transparency International. (shrink)

Increasingly research in the field of business and society suggests that ethics and corporate social responsibility can be profitable. Yet this work raises a troubling question: Is it ethical to use ethics and social responsibility in a strategic way? Is it possible to be ethical or socially responsible for the wrong reason? In this article, we define a strategy concept in order to situate the different approaches to the strategic use of ethics and social responsibility found in the current literature. (...) We then analyze the ethics of such approaches using both utilitarianism and deontology and end by defining limits to the strategic use of ethics. (shrink)

Within the context of employee rights and management social responsibility, this paper identifies and explores three ethical dimensions of downsizing. Using ANOVA and Scheffe post-hoc statistical techniques, groups involved in the downsizing decision making process were compared with groups affected by the process on each ethical dimension. Results indicated that those affected by the process attached greater ethical significance to these dimensions than those who were involved in formulating and implementing/communicating downsizing decisions.

The authors propose a framework to integrate virtue ethics into marketing theory and apply it to the development of marketing strategies. Virtue ethics, a philosophy that focuses on an individual's moral character, has received limited attention from marketing scholars and researchers. The authors argue that without consideration of virtue ethics a comprehensive analysis of the ethical character of marketing decision makers and their strategies cannot be achieved. They provide an overview of virtue ethics supplemented by a case study of The (...) Body Shop, International to demonstrate how evaluation of the ethics of corporate executives and their marketing strategies is completed by virtue ethics. (shrink)

Plato claimed that morality exits to control conflict. Business people increasingly are called upon to resolve moral conflicts between various stakeholders who maintain opposing ethical positions or principles. Attempts to resolve these moral conflicts within business discussions may be exacerbated if disputants have different communicative styles. To better understand the communication process involved in attempts to resolve a moral dilemma, we investigate the "discourse ethics" procedure of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas claims that an individual's level of moral reasoning parallels the type (...) of communication which that individual typically uses in attempts to resolve conflict. Our research focuses upon the relationship between the communicative style used by participants attempting to resolve a particular moral dilemma involving workplace safety and the level of moral reasoning possessed by those participants. The results of our study suggest that, contrary to Habermas' views, participants with "higher" levels of moral reasoning do not use "discursive" communicative tactics more frequently than participants that possessed "lower" moral reasoning. (shrink)

The Puritan ethic is conventionally interpreted as a set of individualistic values that encourage a degree of self-interest inimical to the good of organizations and society. A closer reading of original Puritan moralists reveals a different ethic. Puritan moralists simultaneously legitimated economic individualism while urging individuals to work for the common good. They contrasted self-interest and the common good, which they understood to be the sinful and moral ends, respectively, of economic individualism. This polarity can be found in all the (...) details of their moral system, including the Puritan understanding of vocation, economic virtues, property rights, contracts, wealth and poverty, market prices and interest, and the proper economic role of government. The efforts of contemporary ethics to confront the problem of self-interest in business organizations and society would be enriched by a rediscovery of the Puritan understanding of self as a fundamental problem for any individualistic value system. (shrink)

This article begins with four situations, the first three of which are common to many businesspeople and persons in the United States today and the fourth, unfortunately, is growing: Setting the minimum level at which workers are paid; going bankrupt to avoid paying for credit card purchases, claiming a questionable deduction in calculating one's federal income tax liability, and violating the law in every state by a major U.S. corporation.These cases support the idea that positive law is the operative ethic (...) for persons in a commercial setting. Reasons advanced for this phenomenon are ethical ambiguity, lack of personal responsibility, increasing technicality of contemporary society, and the fact that the law is now seen as the most that is expected of businesspersons. In arriving at the paper's conclusions, positive law theory is discussed. Data are presented to explain why these illustrations are not mere anecdotal examples but represent broad contemporary occurrences in the U.S. (shrink)

After years of debate over the importance of ethical conduct in organizations, the federal government has decided to institutionalize ethics as a buffer to prevent legal violations in organizations. The key requirements of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (FSG) are outlined, and suggested actions managers should adopt to improve ethical compliance are presented. An effective compliance program is more a process and commitment than a specific blueprint for conduct. The organization has the responsibility to create an organizational climate to reduce misconduct. (...) The adoption of a FSG compliance program has the potential to substantially lessen organizational penalties if there is due diligence to prevent misconduct. Federal courts determine the effectiveness of an FSG program after a violation occurs. (shrink)

In our global economy knowledge-based industry is takingmore importance. Recent years have seen the success of anincreasing number of start-up companies, most technology-basedenterprises financed by private persons or companies, or through venture capital funds and public offering. In manyyears, those companies are faced at certain critical momentswith matters involving intellectual property rights, insiderinformation and raising money. These facts all have an ethicaldimension. There is an increasing need for ethical behaviourfrom all parties involved. A code of conduct of all partiesshould be (...) applied. This paper describes the growth processof a company and the valuation of an innovation project. Itwill overview a number of ethical issues, at different stagesin the innovation business, and in the lifetime of a start-upcompany, such as the problems of intellectual property, theconfidentiality of information, the negotiation processbetween the entrepreneur and the financier, the marketingof raising funds and of an IPO, and finally the informationand insider trading. The paper concludes with aplea for increased ethical ethical behaviour and the needfor rules of best practice for all parties: the inventor,the entrepreneur, the financial investor, and other stakeholders. (shrink)

The ethics of Public Relations is changing: the pragmatical approach is giving way to the dialogical approach. Pragmatical PR Ethics concentrates on issues and cases and hardly has a conceptual core. Dialogical PR Ethics concentrates on procedures and structures and uses symmetric communication as its core concept. Both approaches of PR ethics have their strong and weak points. A metaethical framework is presented to combine both approaches.

The moral intuitions and arguments of some prominent business ethics authors regarding the ethics of monopoly are drenched with contestable economic theory. Discussions too typically ignore theoretical alternatives and debates about the nature of monopolies, their assets and liabilities. I review the theoretical debates and show why they matter to business ethics. That there may be genuine cases of rivalrous monopoly, that monopolies might in the odd circumstance prove more efficient or become advantageous in contests with labor or useful in (...) respect of a nation''s international affairs does not imply we should unwary of monopolies. However, not only the best theory to date, but also the mere fact of serious disagreement in the field suggests that there is no necessary connection between monopolies and practices such as price discrimination, price fixing, bribery, collusion, and so on. This frustrates the most pervasive and most prominent argument so far for the claim that monopolies are intrinsically unethical. (shrink)

Within discourse theory, language is seen as constitutive of reality. Furthermore, facts and values are viewed as inseparable. This has consequences for business ethics. In this paper the relationship between discourse theory and business ethics is discussed. Both the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of business ethics are taken into account. Furthermore, an example of an empirical study is presented. A discourse analysis is conducted to answer the questions of how bankers in Holland conceptualize and thus treat their customers and whether (...) there are differences between the largest three banks. The article contains the description of five different discourses on customers within the banks. (shrink)

This paper discusses the extent to which books about business ethics are purchased or read outside of tertiary institutions in Australia, whether the subject is commonly perceived as business, philosophy or both, what range of business ethics books is commonly offered for purchase, and what conclusions might be drawn from the above considerations. Investigation shows that the range and availability of business ethics books is quite limited outside of tertiary institutions, and that the general perception is that business ethics is (...) something which pertains specifically to business rather than to moral philosophy. It is likely that this tends to isolate the subject from philosophy as broadly conceived in the minds of business practitioners. (shrink)

Some writers suggest that corporations should act in ways which reflect a broad concern for the well-being of others, as opposed to a more narrow (Libertarian) conception of responsibility. But this Broad View of moral responsibility puts us on a collision course with our considered intuitions about paternalistic acts. This paper discusses several aspects of this issue: the neutrality of the Standard View of Paternalism, the nature of the defenses of paternalistic interventions allowed by the Standard View of Paternalism and (...) their reliance on consent; and the sort of position on paternalism the Board View would have to endorse in order to justify the benevolence-motivated orientation required by its conception of moral responsibility.The conclusion is that unless we are prepared to take a different, non-standard view of paternalism the Board View of corporate moral responsibility will be untenable. (shrink)

This paper argues that widely accepted understanding of the respective responsibilities of business and government in the post war industrialized world can be traced back to a tacit social contract that emerged following the second world war. The effect of this contract was to assign responsibility for generating wealth to business and responsibility for ensuring the equitable sharing of wealth to governments. Without question, this arrangement has resulted in substantial improvements in the quality of life in the industrialized world in (...) the intervening period. I argue that with advance of economic globalization and the growing power and influence of multi national corporations, this division of responsibilities is not longer viable or defensible. What is needed, fifty years after the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, is a new social contract that shares responsibilities for human rights and related ethical responsibilities in a manner more in keeping with the vision captured by the post war Declaration. I conclude by suggesting some reasons for thinking that a new social contract may be emerging. (shrink)