This article argues that businesses are morally responsible for compensating the people harmed by their activities even if they were not negligent, i.e., the businesses took reasonable precautions. Critics of this position maintain that responsibility requires choice, and by taking precautions, businesses choose not to harm others. This article accepts their argument’s first premise but rejects the second premise. It contends that businesses often seek risky or innovative activities to increase profits, and the essence of innovative activities is that precautions cannot sufficiently reduce their foreseeable harmful consequences. The correct understanding of businesses’ decision-making enables us to appreciate that businesses choose to undertake risky activities while knowing that they can harm others despite preventive measures. It follows that preventive measures should not serve as an excuse against liability for harm.

This article explores the major factors that negatively affect the corporate moral responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry to promote human dignity and the common good during COVID-19 applying the ethical lens of Catholic social teaching and structural analysis of sociology. Utilizing textual data from published peer-reviewed articles, books, and media and church documents, it argues that the financialization of Big Pharma and the weakening of state regulation due to conflict of interests and unethical campaign contributions by the pharmaceutical industry to American legislators have resulted in corporate moral irresponsibility and the weakening of state regulation against profiteering in the sale of anti-COVID medicines and vaccines that can harm human dignity and the common good. It provides some recommendations on how to strengthen the state and non-state regulatory systems to protect human dignity and the common good during COVID-19.

The recent availability of affordable Artificial Intelligence (AI) for auditing has enabled small audit firms to experiment with this disruptive innovation. This paper goes beyond the literature’s traditional focus on the Big Four accounting firms, to present two studies that explored ethical professional judgments in the use of AI in this new organizational context, crucial for the global economy. Study 1 was a qualitative investigation of a small audit firm near Washington DC, one of the earliest adopters of MindBridge Ai Auditor, the world’s first off-the-self, affordable AI-powered auditing platform. Drawing from Study 1 insights, we developed a two-part scenario that was used for a survey in Study 2, a quantitative investigation involving sixty-eight accounting professionals and 176 students. The findings from both studies have relevant theoretical and practical implications for how AI may impact professionalism / commercialism tensions in small audit firms.

The present research aimed to determine the Machiavellian orientations of tax administration auditors in Tunisia when faced with aggressive tax evasion strategies. To this end, we sent questionnaires to 119 executives of Tunisian tax authorities in charge of the tax auditing missions classified into three categories: central inspector, chief inspector and general inspector. The data were analysed using the structural equation method. Statistical results show that auditors from the tax administration, with weak Machiavellian orientations, ethically judge aggressive tax evasion strategies and strongly believe in the importance of CSR. Thus, the results show that engagement in CSR practices plays a central role between the Machiavellianism of the tax authorities’ auditors and the dubious practices of tax evasion. The current study is the first attempt to analyse the effect of Machiavellian orientations of professionals and CSR practices on tax evasion in the Tunisian context.

The overall objectives of this article are to help the reader see and understand through Aristotelian lenses: (1) positive and negative aspects of the Leveraged Buyout (LBO) business model; and, (2) how LBO practices can be reformed so as to retain positives and reduce negatives. Aristotelian lenses considered are: wealth acquisition through wealth expansion, wealth creation, and wealth transfers; distributive and corrective justice; and, a dialectic analytic process of retaining positives, reducing negatives, and reforming. Key net positive wealth expansion aspects of the model are discussed with respect to: profitability for the owners, managers, and investors of LBO firms; potential productivity improvements on the cost and revenue sides; and, potentially greater credit availability. Negative wealth transfer and destruction aspects with respect to: a relatively high rate of bankruptcies in some countries and in economic downturns; LBO firm gains without responsibility for losses; wealth transfers from employees, creditors, ordinary vs “carried interest” taxpayers; and, damaged wealth expansion and creation capabilities of acquired organizations are discussed. Potential reforms that could reduce negatives, retain positives, and reform the model are discussed.