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Displaying: 1-19 of 19 documents


1. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Liao Shen-bai Toward a Basic Mutual Understanding between Confucian and Aristotelian Virtue Ethics
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It is important for philosophers to find out positive approaches for increasing mutual understanding on those fundamental questions in both the Confucian and Aristotelian traditions of doing virtue ethics. The Aristotelian concept of the good and the Confucian concept of dao pose a question about the way human beings see the final principle of ethics. Staying within the realm of human life, Confucius develops two co-related perspectives of seeing the dao of human being. The first perspective sees the dao as standing for the ultimate truth and goodness for human beings. Setting aside the Aristotelian metaphysics of nous, this conception does not stand that far removed from Aristotle’s view of the good. The second perspective sees the dao as the right way for individuals to start. This notion seems far from Aristotle’s view of right choice. The reason is that Confucius’s manner of comprehension embraces both understanding and insight, while that of Aristotle focuses solely on understanding. But Aristotle’s concept of right choice is, in some indirect way, related to Confucius’s view of the right way. For both Confucius and Aristotle, the right way refers to our initiating acting on something connected to the end with no more thinking.
2. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Gina Vega Volkswagen: Business as Usual
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This paper describes the general disregard for relationships that leads to unethical behavior in business as well as in one’s personal life, using an illustration from 4,000 years ago and from today. Volkswagen has been characterized as just one more example of ethical violations that lead to long-lasting environmental, financial, and personal impacts. The story of Jacob’s life reflects the origin of this type of ethical behavior and stands in parallel to the eighty-year history of the Volkswagen corporation.
3. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Mark S. Schwartz, W. Michael Hoffman Ethical Decision Making Surveyed through the Lens of Moral Imagination
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This paper attempts to build on the contribution to moral imagination theory by Patricia Werhane by further integrating moral imagination with new theoretical developments that have taken place in the business ethics field. To accomplish this objective, part one will review the concept of moral imagination, from its definitional origins to its full theoretical conceptualization. Part two will provide a brief literature review of how moral imagination has been applied in empirical research. Part three will analyze and apply the construct of moral imagination as it relates to the key process stages of ethical decision making including awareness, judgment, intention, and behavior. Immoral imagination is then discussed, along with other behavioral ethics concepts as they relate to moral imagination. The paper concludes with potential future research directions, as well as teaching and managerial implications for the moral imagination construct.
4. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Edward J. Romar, Anthony Graybosch The Dao of Business
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Using Daoism expressed by Chuang Tzu and the Confucianism in The Analects, The Great Learning, and the Mencius, this paper compares and contrasts Daoism and Confucianism as business ethics. In addition, it applies Daoism and Confucianism to several business cases.
5. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Stephen Kershnar Shareholder Theory in Academia
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The managers of colleges and universities have to make decisions on a wide range of issues with regard to goals and how they may be pursued. “Managers” refers to such positions as the president, provost, vice president dean, and director of a university. This paper lays out the theoretical basis for the right answer for these decisions. It does so by setting out the fundamental function of an academic institution, linking this function to a duty, and explaining how to satisfy this duty in hard cases. This article’s thesis is that university managers have a duty to shareholders alone. Shareholders are those who own the university. This duty is satisfied when managers satisfy the fundamental project shareholders assign to a university.
6. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Robert J. Baum, 1941-2016
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7. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 3
Notes on Contributors
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8. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Bernie D’Angelo Asher Afro-communitarian Ethics: Implications for Small Business Stakeholder Relationships
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In recent times there have been increasing efforts at reinterpreting core CSR theories such as stakeholder theory with new perspectives as well as applying them to different contexts away from its Western masculinist connotations. This work seeks to add to these efforts by exploring the impacts that the African philosophical worldview of Afro-communitarianism has on small business stakeholder relationships. Specifically it discusses the kinds of relationships that owner/managers of small businesses, in adherence to Afro-communitarianism, maintain with their families, employees, local communities and competitors- all key stakeholders. The contention is that such ethics demand more extensive ethical responsibilities from owner/managers of small businesses than owner/managers motivated by traditional stakeholder theory with its Western masculinist undertones. It is hoped that this effort will add significant perspectives to stakeholder theory as well as having implications for both small and large business practice.
9. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Thomas G. Pittz, Philip G. Benson, Melissa Intindola, Manos Kalargiros Opportunity or Opportunism?: An Examination of International Recruitment via Employer and Nation Branding Strategies
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Despite attention to the concerns of labor migration by public policy makers and scholars, the effects of international recruitment policies in developed nations on the economies of the developing world have been largely unaddressed by management literature. This work addresses that lacuna by combining hitherto separate streams of management scholarship with the fledgling fields of nation and employer branding to consider their synthesis in an international context. This combination introduces the possibility for evaluating the effects of recruitment practices on developing economies and creates space for future research regarding ethical international recruitment policies. We explore and discuss these issues from the perspective of potential employees in developing economies and offer suggestions to guide future research in this area.
10. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Debra Comer, Michael Schwartz Adapting the Jewish Spiritual Practice of Mussar to Develop Business Students’ Character
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Business ethics educators have been encouraged to cultivate students’ character, but have received meager instructions for doing so. Additionally, there has been insufficient focus on equipping students with the tools they need to foster their ethical development after completing our courses. In this paper, it is argued that the Jewish spiritual practice of Mussar, whose premise is that individuals can become better versions of themselves by repairing their character traits, can inform business ethics instruction. After presenting the tenets and historical background of Mussar, we provide specific information that will enable business ethics instructors to adapt its tools and techniques in order to put their students on a personalized path of lifelong character improvement.
11. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Maretno A. Harjoto The Impact of Institutional and Technical Social Responsibilities on the Likelihood of Corporate Fraud
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Organizational theory argues that institutional social responsibility, which represents managers’ moral values, ethics, and norms (i.e. community, environment), and technical (strategic) social responsibility, which represents firms’ relationship with key stakeholders (i.e., employees, suppliers, consumers), influence corporate ethical behavior. We examine and compare the impacts of strengths and concerns of institutional and technical (strategic) social responsibilities on the likelihood of corporate fraud. Using a sample of 152 high-profile corporate fraud cases in the U.S. during the 2000-2010 period, we find that firms’ corporate social responsibility activities reduce the likelihood of corporate fraud. More importantly, our study finds that both institutional strengths and technical strengths reduce the likelihood of corporate fraud. Institutional concerns also increase the likelihood of corporate fraud and institutional responsibility plays a more significant role than technical responsibility. Our study supports the legitimacy theory of social responsibility and highlights the importance of moral management to reduce the likelihood of corporate fraud.
12. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Amy Klemm Verbos, Stephanie L. Black Benefit Corporations as a Distraction: An Overview and Critique
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Benefit corporation legislation has rapidly disseminated in the United States. Its advocates claim it is a necessary corporate form to address the unique needs of for-profit social enterprises, despite many scholarly and legal practitioners who doubt the need for or wisdom of adopting this organizational form. Others suggest that the legislation is flawed and deficiencies should be addressed. After reviewing the present status of benefit corporation legislation, this article contributes to the discourse arguing that (1) benefit corporations are unnecessary under the law; (2) benefit corporation legislation does not enhance corporate law; (3) benefit corporation laws create unnecessary new legal risks for both traditional and benefit corporations, and their respective directors; and (4) third party certification in entity formation law is inappropriate.
13. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 2
Notes on Contributors
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14. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Jeff Everett, Dean Neu, Abu Shiraz Rahaman Ethics in the Eye of the Beholder: A Pluralist View of Fair Trade
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This paper examines fair trade through a variety of ethical lenses as a means of determining whether or not it is, indeed, fair. The specific lenses employed are utilitarianism, justice, rights, virtue, and care. The context examined is coffee production and the analysis is based on twenty-three interviews conducted with fair trade coffee producers and other associated actors in the country of Guatemala. The paper highlights how each of these lenses draws attention to the unique moral dimensions of fair trade, and demonstrates how a pluralist view enables a better grasp of the complexity of the ethics surrounding fair trade than is provided by any one, singular framing. Implications of the analysis are provided for business educators, practitioners, and students of fair trade.
15. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Patricia Grant, Surendra Arjoon, Peter McGhee Reconciling Ethical Theory and Practice: Toward Developing a Business Ethics Pedagogical Model
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Recent work in ethical theory brings into question the ability of master-principle theories (utilitarianism, deontology, rights and duties, and social contracts) to provide guidance for normative behaviour and ethical reflection. Business ethics education and corporate ethics programmes are still heavily influenced by these theories which have been found to be deficient in adequately dealing with ethical reflection and guiding practice. There appears to be a dissonance between the fields of ethical theory and business ethics education. This paper explores this dissonance by developing a business ethics pedagogical model which compliments master-principle theories with an enhanced or enlightened virtue ethics that incorporates the notions of pluralism, particularism, and intuitionism. Practical insights are provided through interviews with a sample of thirty-three directors in New Zealand.
16. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Marc S. Mentzer Attitudes toward Employee Rights among the States: Why Vermont Is Not Like Mississippi
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The connection between U.S. political culture and strictness of employment regulation is examined. Political culture has been influenced by the patterns of English settlers, most notably the divergence between the Puritan-influenced values of New England and the royalist-influenced values of the American South.
17. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Caroline Moraes Consumers' Concerns with How They Are Researched Online
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Increased consumer usage of the internet has highlighted a number of problematic online marketing practices, including the use of online platforms to research consumers without full consumer awareness. Despite current debates regarding online research ethics from a marketing perspective, scant research has been published on consumers’ concerns with how they are researched online, which is a knowledge gap this paper seeks to address through qualitative research with UK consumers. This is an important yet neglected topic, given that consumer voices have been under-represented in the online research ethics debate over the years. The paper makes a significant theoretical contribution as it extends the ethics of care and responsibility to an online context, which can frame ongoing online research ethics discussions where problematic power asymmetries may exist between researchers and consumers.
18. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Deniz Öztürk, Semra F. Aşcıgil Workplace Bullying among Public Sector Employees: Reflections upon Organizational Justice Perceptions and Organizational Citizenship Behavior
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This study aims to explore the influence of workplace bullying incidences on both targets and bystanders with respect to their perceptions of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior. Responses from 288 white-collar public employees revealed that one third of the participants stated themselves as being exposed to workplace bullying behavior in the last six months. As hypothesized, findings support the view that workplace bullying experience plays a significant negative role in organizational justice and citizenship behavior perceptions. Moreover, a significant negative effect is also found on justice perceptions and citizenship behavior of bystanders. Subjective evaluations did not reveal a significant effect in both cases.
19. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Notes on Contributors
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