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Displaying: 1-17 of 17 documents


1. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Patricia H. Werhane, Mollie Painter-Morland Editors’ Introduction
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2. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
R. Edward Freeman, Adrian Keevil, Lauren Purnell Poor People and the Politics of Capitalism
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The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the current conversation about the relationship between capitalism and the poor assumes a story about business that is shopworn and outmoded. There are assumptions about business, human behavior, and language that are no longer useful in the twenty first century. Business needs to be understood as how we cooperate together to create value and trade. It is fundamentally about creating value for stakeholders. Human beings are not solely self-interested, but driven by meaning, purpose, and the ability to cooperate. And, language is best understood as a tool, rather than a source of representation. Business and capitalism with these new assumptions can be realized by large and small businesses as not just about money and profits but as the creation of meaning within a prophetic framework.
3. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Nigel Roome A Retrospective On Globalization and Sustainable Development: The Business Challenge of Systems Organization and Systems Integration
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The 2008 ‘credit crisis’ brought to attention that business and finance operate in open-complex systems. In contrast, the period leading up to the crisis was dominated by narrower thinking developed from the idea that business was about economics and that management concerned agency. This paper revisits ideas first developed in the late 1990s that arose from the observation that business was confronting interacting ‘systems.’ The main systems were around (sustainable) development, the internationalization of business and a set of social and cultural concerns resulting from globalization.The paper anticipated the collapse of parts of the economic system as a result of hyper-competition. It points to the growing significance of ‘identity’ and its potential to create a ‘clash of values.’ It concludes by suggesting that as we enter this ‘systems age’ our models and assumptions around the boundaries of companies and the idea of companies and stakeholders would be severely challenged.
4. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Georges Enderle Three Major Challenges for Business and Economic Ethics in the Next Ten Years: Wealth Creation, Human Rights, and Active Involvement of the World’s Religions
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Given the enormous changes in the ways we will live together on the planet Earth, business and economic ethics, with its considerable developments since the1980s, is called to ask itself what major challenges lay ahead for it in the next ten years. It seems three major challenges have emerged with increasing clarity, urgency, and importance. They concern all levels of business, from the personal to the organizational and the systemic level and likely will become even more important in the future. In three sections, the paper explicates the following challenges: (a) a rich and comprehensive understanding of wealth creation as the purpose of business and economics; (b) the guarantee of securing all human rights to all people; and (c) the active involvement of the world’s religions in meeting the challenges of creating wealth and securing human rights.
5. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Geert Demuijnck, Hubert Ngnodjom Public-Private Partnerships and Corruption in Developing Countries: A Case Study
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In this paper we evaluate the ethical aspects of a public-private partnership (PPP) for the production and distribution of electricity in a particular context, i.e.,in a developing country characterized by a high corruption rate. In general, multinational enterprises (MNE) are considered suspect in developing countries by their own populations and by others, especially in those countries perceived as corrupt. A second source of suspicion concerns the privatization of utilities: utilities such as electricity and clean water play an essential role in people’s lives, thus, leaving their production and distribution in the hands of for-profit companies may seem imprudent, particularly with respect to the poorest people. On the basis of a questionnaire submitted to managers of a privatized utility company in Cameroon, this case study suggests that the combination of these two sources of suspicion does not automatically lead to negative outcomes.
6. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Michelle Greenwood, R. Edward Freeman Ethics and HRM: The Contribution of Stakeholder Theory
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The development of an ethical perspective of HRM that is both employee centered and explicitly normative and, as such, distinct from dominant and criticalperspectives of HRM has progressed in recent years. Reliance on the traditional “threesome” of rights/justice theories, deontology and consequentialism, however, has limited debate to micro-level issues and the search for a “solution.” By understanding the employment relationship as a stakeholder relationship, we open the ethical analysis of HRM to the pluralism and pragmatism that stakeholder theory has to offer. In doing this, we can address both the broader need for HRM to offer a more comprehensive account of our humanity and the specific requisite for HRM to treat employees as moral persons with “names and faces.”
7. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Howard Harris Inquisitiveness and Abduction, Charles Peirce and Moral Imagination
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Inquisitiveness has been found to be a characteristic of successful global managers. The paper distinguishes inquisitiveness from purposeless curiosity andshows that it is a virtue. It suggests that the practice of inquisitiveness is akin to abduction, the method of reasoning described by Charles S. Peirce distinct from deduction and induction, and essential to creativity. It then suggests that an enhanced capacity for inquisitiveness and abduction will increase the capacity for moral imagination and hence improve moral decision-making (and perhaps moral behaviour).
8. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Ghislain Deslandes, Kenneth Casler Indirect Communication and Business Ethics: Kierkegaardian Perspectives
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By deliberately placing ethics under the category of communication, Kierkegaard intended to show that it is like no other science. He distinguished betweendirect communication and indirect communication. Direct communication concerns objectivity and knowledge; indirect communication, on the other hand, has to do with subjectivity (“becoming-subject”). In this paper, the author presents Kierkegaard’s philosophy of communication and ethics with special emphasis on his irony and pseudonymous authorship. He also examines the possibility of a discourse in business ethics, focusing on the educational perspective. He discusses Kierkegaard’s aspects of communication—the communicator, the receiver, and the object—with particular reference to applied ethics. He argues that the Kierkegaardian notion of indirect communication can contribute to renewing business ethics teaching—which in his view is more art than science—in two important ways: (1) when the ethics teacher changes his position in the teacher/learner relationship; and (2) when the relationship between communicator/receiver is strengthened at the expense of the object.
9. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
René ten Bos Serres´s Philosophy of Science: An Introduction for Business Ethicists
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Many of the issues discussed in the field of business ethicists seem to involve a certain understanding of science. For example, the debates about sustainabilityor globalization oftentimes appeal to scientific understandings about facts and processes taking place in the actual world. Hardly ever, however, do business ethicists discuss the role that scientists can or should play in the way organizations cope with these issues. In the paper, the work of the French philosopher of science Michel Serres is discussed to shed light on two kinds of roles that scientists might play. It will be argued that complex issues such as sustainability are better served by a ‘Leibnizian’ rather than a ‘Cartesian’ understanding of science. A concern with these issues requires a different kind of rationality than the one that has generally prevailed in the history of science and perhaps also in the world of business and enterprise.
10. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 3/4
Notes on Contributors
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11. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Kirsten E. Martin TMI (Too Much Information): The Role of Friction and Familiarity in Disclosing Information
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Organizations have a vested interest in customers, employees, and users to disclose information within existing expectations of privacy. This empirical examination uses theoretical sampling and experimental design to identify the factors individuals consider when disclosing information within privacy expectations. The findings from a factorial vignette survey are theoretically generalizable and show that an individual’s relationship to the recipient (familiarity) and the degree to which the information is protected from being easily transferred to others (friction) positively influence the odds that disclosure is judged to be withinprivacy expectations. The results have implications for data gathering and management of customer, user, and employee information, and suggest a two pronged strategy for organizations targeting the disclosure of information by individuals inside and outside the organization: (1) taking into consideration the familiarity of the recipient and (2) increasing the information friction of the environment.
12. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Marietta Peytcheva, Danielle E. Warren Auditor Professionalism: The Importance of Internalizing Professional Standards and Detection of Severely-Sanctioned Professional Violations
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The effectiveness of professional sanctions against violations rests upon the severity of sanctions and detection of violations. Here we examine perceptions of professional violation detection in auditing where the professional standards may conflict with the interests of the auditor’s firm. Using a sample of future and experienced auditors, we test the relationship between professional violations and auditors’ perceptions of the likelihood that severely-sanctioned violations will be discovered (a) by the audit profession, and (b) by the auditor’s firm. In our study, an auditor’s belief that professional bodies are likely to detect professionalviolations relates positively to auditor professionalism. However, we find beliefs that the audit firm will detect severely-sanctioned professional violations negatively affect auditor professionalism. In our study, the lowest level of professionalism occurs when auditors believe that their own audit firm, but not the audit profession, will detect a professional violation. We also find that auditors’ internalization of professional standards relates positively to auditor professionalism. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
13. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
John Dobson A Moral and Economic Defense of Executive Compensation
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A great deal has been written in recent years about the justification, if any, for the current levels of executive compensation. The folk consensus is that the current levels of executive compensation are unjustifiably high from both a moral and an economic perspective. In the case of the former, the compensation level is unfair and unjust. And in the case of the latter, the compensation level is not in the broader interests of other stakeholders or of firm-value maximization.In this paper I counter this folk wisdom. I argue that executive compensation is a facet of the Stockholder Model, in which the primary objective of the firm is taken to be the maximization of shareholder wealth, and as such any moral critique of executive compensation is by default a critique of the Stockholder Model. Thus a necessary and sufficient condition for a moral defense of executive compensation is a moral defense of the Stockholder Model. I provide such a defense. Once the Stockholder Model is accepted then any moral or economic defense of executive compensation rests on its compatibility with shareholder wealthmaximization. I argue that the current levels of executive compensation are consistent with the overarching corporate goal of shareholder wealth maximization. Thus the current levels of executive compensation are both morally and economically justified.
14. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Angelo (Carlo) Carrascoso The Ethical Issues Surrounding Network-Expansion Strategies in SME Internationalization: An Empirical Investigation
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Research on small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and the ethical dimension of their internationalization initiatives has not been sufficiently undertaken, with research in international business and business ethics focusing primarily on multinational enterprises and their corresponding social responsibilities. This paper addresses this lacuna by discussing the ethical issues surrounding the process by which such firms utilize network-expanding strategies to legitimate themselves to foreign networks and partners. Through a longitudinal grounded theory approach, this paper illustrates how SME internationalization is a relationally-influenced and ethically-laden process that needs careful deliberation and reflection. Because their internationalization initiatives give rise to issues that do not diminish one’s responsibility for ethical behavior, SMEs need to create an ethical infrastructure that, while cognizant of their resource constraints, enables them to develop and sustain a strong sense of character and integrity to deal with the challenges surrounding SME internationalization.
15. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Christopher Michaelson Morally Differentiating Responsibility for Climate Change Mitigation: An Analogy with Tolstoy’s “Master and Man”
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The ethical tension over whether countries have differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation evokes the tale of a master and a man. The one who thinks she is the master is analogous to the wealthier, industrialized nations and their market actors, and the human is the rest of humanity, particularly those citizens of less developed countries. Since 1992, there has been formal, stated agreement that there should be differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation between developed and developing nations, but differentiation remained a sticking point in negotiations over implementation at Copenhagen in 2009. Putting the parties in the climate change differentiation debate in analogy with the characters of Tolstoy’s story, “Master and Man,” this paper seeks to advance the common appreciation for the moral foundations of differentiation.
16. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Sherwin Klein Platonic Reflections on Global Business Ethics
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In part 1 of the paper, I develop a Platonic business ethic, emphasizing Plato’s Republic. I approach business ethics from a virtue ethics position, and I attempt to show that a Platonic craftsmanship model infuses a corporation with a type of managerial wisdom and justice, molds temperate and courageous corporate characters, and entails a morally fine type of self-interest. I also show that it is basic to two influential management theories.In part 2, I use Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom to show that the craftsmanship model is central to the concept of development. This concept is important in ethical discussions of both globalization and transnational corporations. Thus, I attempt to globalize Platonic business ethics using a craftsmanship model.In my concluding remarks, I attempt to show that the Plato/Sen position on development can be illustrated by both American and non-American capitalist firms functioning in our globalized world.
17. Business and Professional Ethics Journal: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1/2
Notes on Contributors
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