scholarly journals Reconnecting to the Social in Business Ethics

2021 ◽  
Vol 170 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Gazi Islam ◽  
Michelle Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Mirela Matei ◽  
Ioan Done

This chapter focuses on the topic of social responsibility and the interference with other concepts like business ethics, cause related marketing, or corporate governance. In addition, the study presents the motivations of companies that are implicated in different Social Responsible programmes. The main objective of this chapter is to delimitate the concept of social responsibility from other concepts and to present the main motivations for companies that run different SR programs.


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Frederick

The question of how far, if at all, values invade, or should invade, the realm of empirical research is the focus of this issue of Business Ethics Quarterly. Readers will find a variety of answers and perspectives, along with some illustrative examples that support one or another of the possible views. Feelings run high on this topic, and they occasionally break through the normally staid atmosphere that one finds in most academic journals. That in itself may tell something about whether inquiry may be safely cordoned from a contaminating normative orientation. In form of presentation also, some of the articles selected by the editors vary from the conventional design. Essays and opinion pieces take their place alongside more formal presentations. Also included are two discussant papers.The original inspiration for this collection was a symposium presented during the 1992 annual meeting of the Social Issues in Management division of The Academy of Management. Held in Las Vegas, more than one attendee enjoyed the irony of business ethicists rubbing shoulders with gamblers and other related exotica found in Sin City. The symposium papers are grouped together and, with one exception, appear in the original order of presentation. They are followed by the two discussants’ comments. It is fair to say that in the intervening period, all of these authors have had second, or even third, thoughts and have revised their initial declarations somewhat. This echoes a time-honored practice in the U. S. Congress of allowing members to “extend their remarks” for the (official) Congressional Record, which is another way of giving politicians a chance to tell it the way they wished they had said it in the first place. That’s not bad in the case of academics also, if someone is careful to see that the “extensions” do not extend too far, and in that sense the editors have done what they could. The lead paper, though not part of the earlier symposium, is closely related to the general theme and is included for that reason.


Politics ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-139
Author(s):  
Norman Barry

This article compares the economics and ethics of Anglo-American individualistic market capitalism with its rivals – notably the ‘social market’ model and communitarian capitalism. It argues that ‘business ethics’ is a threat to economic efficiency and does not guarantee higher moral standards in commerce.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nien-hê Hsieh

ABSTRACT:Of the many developments in business ethics that Thomas Donaldson has helped pioneer, one is the application of social contract theory to address questions about the responsibilities of business actors. InCorporations and Morality, Donaldson develops one of the most sustained and comprehensive accounts that aims to justify the existence of for-profit corporations and to specify and ground their responsibilities. In order to further our understanding about the purpose and responsibilities of productive organizations, and as a contribution to the scholarship on Donaldson’s thought, this paper gathers together the critical responses to Donaldson’s account along with Donaldson’s replies to his critics. The paper argues that we would do well to continue engaging with Donaldson’s account because of its distinctive and challenging conception of the purpose and responsibilities of productive organizations, but that many of the insights to be gained come from reframing the role played by social contract theory.


2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1337-1355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Wempe

Contractarian business ethics (CBE) is in great vogue in the present study of corporate morality. Its stated ambition is to provide better practical guidance than the more general ethical theories of business ethics, such as Kantianism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics or the stakeholder model. But how good is this new trend in business ethics theorizing? This article aims to assess CBE's credentials as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model in two earlier domains: political authority and social justice. Building on this comparison, it then develops four criteria for any future CBE. To apply the social contract model properly to the domain of corporate morality, it should be: (1) self-disciplined, i.e. not aspire to results beyond what the contract model can realistically establish; (2) argumentative, i.e. provide principles that are demonstrative results of the contractarian method; (3) task-directed, i.e. it should be clear what the social contract thought-experiment is intended to model; and (4) domain-specific, i.e. the contractarian choice situation should be tailored to the defining problems of corporate morality.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa H. Newton

Abstract:The decade in which the Business Ethics Quarterly has flourished has been a good one for business and business ethics, in which new guiding theories (like stakeholder theory), new interpretations of older ethical concepts (trust, virtue, and the social contract, for instance), and whole new paradigms of doing business (the Triple Bottom Line) have entered the literature. But practice has not kept up with theory, and the theoretical gains seem to be offset by terrible losses in the temperance of greed, the fostering of trustworthiness, and sensitivity to the natural environment.


1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dobson

Abstract:Here I synthesize certain ideas presented in two different articles that appeared in the same issue of Business Ethics Quarterly. One article (Hasnas) invokes the stockholder model as a valid normative theory of business ethics, the other article (Dunfee) invokes a marketplace of morality. Both articles imply that the accepted financial-economic view of the firm is a view that can accommodate ethics. I offer empirical support for this view. I also identify the ethic of the stockholder model as a variant on might-makes-right and consider the social acceptance of this ethic as a postmodern phenomenon.


1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Dunfee

Extant social contracts, deriving from communities of individuals, constitute a significant source of ethical norms in business. When found consistent with general ethical theories through the application of a filtering test, these real social contracts generate prima facie duties of compliance on the part of those who expressly or impliedly consent to the terms of the social contract, and also on the part of those who take advantage of the instrumental value of the social contracts. Businesspeople typically participate in multiple communities and, as a consequence, encounter conflicting ethical norms. Priority rules can be devised to resolve such conflicts. The framework of extant social contracts merges normative and theoretical research in business ethics and specifies a domain for empirical studies.


2020 ◽  

Historically, crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted politicians to break up dead-locked structures and implement far-reaching reforms. Path dependencies can be interrupted in times of crisis. This volume examines the social impact of the current pandemic as well as both the long-term challenges it poses and the potential it offers from the perspective of economic and business ethics. How has the COVID-19 crisis changed the balance of power between the state, markets and business? What are the obligations of companies during a pandemic? To what extent are the fight against the coronavirus crisis and that against the climate crisis compatible? What role can and should business ethics play in times of crisis? With contributions by Prof. Dr. Michael S. Aßländer; Prof. Dr. Jörg Althammer; Prof. Dr. Martin Büscher; Niklas Dummer, M.A.; Dr. habil. Michael Ehret; Miriam Fink; Prof. Dr. Manfred Fischedick; Prof. Dr. Nils Goldschmidt; Prof. Dr. Hanns-Stephan Haas; PD Dr. Michaela Haase; Prof. Dr. Ludger Heidbrink; Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hemel; Prof. Dr. Lars Hochmann; Ruzana Liburkina, M.A.; Mark McAdam; Prof. em. Dietmar Mieth; Prof. Dr. Dr. Elmar Nass; Dr. Laura Otto; Prof. Dr. Reinhard Pfriem; Prof. Dr. Ingo Pies; Prof. em. Birger Priddat; Frauke Remmers; Dr. Bastian Ronge; Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa; Prof. em. Hermann Sautter; Dr. Philipp Schepelmann; Prof. Dr. Dr. Ulrich Schmidt; Prof. Dr. Markus Scholz; Prof. Dr. Andreas Suchanek; Prof. em. Peter Ulrich


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document