Organizational Ethics Programs and the Need for Stakeholder Discourse

<p><em>More than ever, businesses are called upon to manage organizational ethics programs. There are, as of yet, no internationally accepted guidelines for doing so. Some find in the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines a framework that fits this need (Palmer & Zakhem, 2001; Izraeli & Schwartz, 1998; Jackson, 1997). As they stand, the Guidelines offer little insight as to what constitutes “ethical conduct.” This in itself is not a problem. Indeed, the question of what business ethics demand is for the most part an “open” question and one that should be regularly revisited to better understand and properly act on changing stakeholder demands (Freeman, 2008). What does constitute a problem, however, is that the Guidelines offer no suggestions as to how an organization ought to work through, in a morally acceptable way, inevitable stakeholder conflict over what is good and right. Following Jürgen Habermas’s insights on discourse ethics, this paper states that the lack of a substantive and discursive procedural ethic threatens ethics program effectiveness. This article expands upon these claims and offers some thoughts about the mutually beneficial role that discourse ethics can and ought to play in effective ethics program management.</em></p>

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A Kantian Perspective on the Characteristics of Ethics Programs

Business Ethics Quarterly ◽

10.5840/beq200414214 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 275-292 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Scott J. Reynolds ◽

Norman E. Bowie

Keyword(s):

Ethical Theory ◽

Point Of View ◽

Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Ethics Programs ◽

Federal Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Moral Point ◽

Ethics Program ◽

Moral Ethics ◽

Social Scientific ◽

The Right

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs.

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It's Alive! The Federal Booker-Fix Debate Stirs

Federal Sentencing Reporter ◽

10.1525/fsr.2012.24.5.335 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (5) ◽

pp. 335-337

Author(s):

Frank O. Bowman, III

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Federal Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Federal Sentencing ◽

Legislative Action ◽

Near Term ◽

Institutional Actors ◽

The U.S

These Editor's Observations introduce Volume 24, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, an issue devoted to renewed discussion in Congress and the U.S. Sentencing Commission about whether there is a need for legislative action to revise or replace the advisory federal sentencing guidelines system judicially created by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 decision in United States v. Booker. It describes the basic positions of the main institutional actors, briefly summarizes the articles in the issue, and makes a prediction about the likelihood of action in the near term.

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Company Cooperation and U.S. Sentencing Guidelines

From Baksheesh to Bribery ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190232399.003.0027 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 665-670

Author(s):

Andrew Boutros

Keyword(s):

Sentencing Guidelines ◽

Legal Counsel ◽

Ethics Program ◽

Reporting Programs ◽

High Level ◽

Level Reduction ◽

The U.S

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has changed how the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines calculate fines for certain defendant companies. The amendments, effective November 1, 2010, make more readily available a long-standing three-level offense-level reduction. This change shifts the inquiry away from (1) the (mis)conduct of the company’s high-level personnel and toward (2) the effectiveness of the company’s compliance and ethics program. This move will surely benefit corporate defendants. Therefore, it is something for which compliance professionals and in-house legal counsel need to both understand and prepare. As the benefits of incentivizing companies to adopt proactive compliance, ethics, and self-reporting programs gain wider recognition, other countries eager to beef up their anti-bribery efforts can be expected to follow suit.

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