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Artificial intelligence ethics requires a united approach from policymakers, AI companies, and individuals, in the development, deployment, and use of these technologies. However, sometimes discussions can become fragmented because of the different levels of governance (Schmitt in AI Ethics 1–12, 2021) or because of different values, stakeholders, and actors involved (Ryan and Stahl in J Inf Commun Ethics Soc 19:61–86, 2021). Recently, these conflicts became very visible, with such examples as the dismissal of AI ethics researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru from Google and the resignation of whistle-blower Frances Haugen from Facebook. Underpinning each debacle was a conflict between the organisation's economic and business interests and the morals of their employees. This paper will examine tensions between the ethics of AI organisations and the values of their employees, by providing an exploration of the AI ethics literature in this area, and a qualitative analysis of three workshops with AI developers and practitioners. Common ethical and social tensions (such as power asymmetries, mistrust, societal risks, harms, and lack of transparency) will be discussed, along with proposals on how to avoid or reduce these conflicts in practice (e.g., building trust, fair allocation of responsibility, protecting employees' autonomy, and encouraging ethical training and practice). Altogether, we suggest the following steps to help reduce ethical issues within AI organisations: improved and diverse ethics education and training within businesses; internal and external ethics auditing; the establishment of AI ethics ombudsmen, AI ethics review committees and an AI ethics watchdog; as well as access to trustworthy AI ethics whistle-blower organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The choice of new technology in a resource-based industry has farreaching implications for its ethical performance. The kraft pulping industry uses considerable amounts of wood as raw material, and regulatory agencies have been tightening their control limits for effluent, solid waste and air emissions. The technological solutions required to reduce the environmental impact of the industry are shown to have the potential of causing social hardship for the mill's employees, the affected communities, lenders, and owners. In some instances, the technological solutions give rise to new environmental challenges. Forestry practices are influencing the public's perception of the kraft pulping industry, its ethical and environmental performance, its profitability, and the properties of its product, which may increase wood requirements. New forestry practices have the potential to reduce the forest land area required to sustain the kraft pulp production at a given level but ethical problems associated with genetic manipulation, phenodiversity, and biodiversity are identified. This paper analyzes the interface between environmental protection, ethics, and choice of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author talks about the developments at the "Asia Pacific Journal of Management" (APJM) as of September 2014. Topics discussed include the journal's focus on impact factors, its adherence to publication ethics, and its editorial review board. Also mentioned are senior editors John Matthews, Peter Ping Li, and Ajai Guar.

This article explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental governance in the mining sector, focusing on the case of CODELCO, a Chilean copper mining company. The study examines the factors that triggered changes in CSR strategies and the types of organizational changes that were introduced. The article argues that CSR strategies in the mining sector are influenced by a combination of national and subnational factors, including tightening environmental regulations, social conflicts, and reputational crises. The paper contributes to the literature on CSR and environmental governance by providing empirical evidence and proposing a three-level institutional framework to analyze the evolution of CSR. [Extracted from the article]

As information technologies have become synonymous with progress in modern society, several ethical concerns have surfaced about their societal implications. In the past few decades, information technologies have had a value-laden impact on social evolution. However, there is limited agreement on the responsibility of businesses and innovators concerning the ethical aspects of information technologies. There is a need to understand the role of business incentives and attitudes in driving technological progress and to understand how they steer the ethics discourse on technology. In the information technology industry, there is an observed trivialization of ethics supported by a business driven and technology-centric approach to ethics. This trivialization rests on hardened beliefs, ideologies, and arguments which hint at reduced accountability for business and tend to individualize social responsibility. The phenomenon of ethics trivialization needs to be duly addressed to resolve the tensions between business needs and ethical concerns. This paper has identified from literature and conceptually analyzed the beliefs and ideologies underlying ethics trivialization which undermine ethics in business contexts. The paper has attempted to address the business concerns indicated by this phenomenon as well as highlight the weaknesses of its assumptions, rhetoric, and justifications. The aim of this paper is to systematically present the justifications in favor of and against the practice of ethics trivialization in the information technology domain, thereby highlighting the need to develop frameworks for assessment of ethical responsibility, accountability, and democratization of the value trade-offs involved in the design of technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editors have very complex tasks and high responsibilities. In general, they are chosen leaders and experts in a field of study. Thus, they are expected to lead a sector of that scientific community, and their function is to serve as gate-keepers of the quality of submissions to journals whose editorial boards they serve because of their ethical and professional image, and positive and open engagement with their peers. Publishing a scientific paper can be an arduous task and in some cases a lengthy one. However, any delay in this process not only serves as a form of stress for authors, it may also disadvantage them by giving their competition an unfair advantage with a head start in the publishing rat race. Consequently, editors who oversee a process that takes an excessive or unreasonable amount of time should be held accountable. In this paper, we propose some suggested time limits for each stage of the publishing process. These should be carefully monitored by the editors, in close collaboration with the publisher, to ensure a fair and timely process that is realistic and reasonable. With clearer guidelines, authors can thus reduce their stress levels by knowing when to expect decisions, and can thus make their journal selection by keeping such factors in mind, and thus hedge their risks and better manage their time. Authors who wait almost indefinitely, or for excessively long periods of time, are victims of a lack of professionalism. Furthermore, editors who fail to communicate delays, effectively or at all, or who fail to offer any sufficient or heartfelt apology should be characterized as acting with professional negligence, if not misconduct. Only when the rules of engagement are fair, strict, clear and well defined can authors expect the publishing system to progress smoothly and professionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many ethics initiatives have stipulated sets of principles and standards for good technology development in the AI sector. However, several AI ethics researchers have pointed out a lack of practical realization of these principles. Following that, AI ethics underwent a practical turn, but without deviating from the principled approach. This paper proposes a complementary to the principled approach that is based on virtue ethics. It defines four "basic AI virtues", namely justice, honesty, responsibility and care, all of which represent specific motivational settings that constitute the very precondition for ethical decision making in the AI field. Moreover, it defines two "second-order AI virtues", prudence and fortitude, that bolster achieving the basic virtues by helping with overcoming bounded ethicality or hidden psychological forces that can impair ethical decision making and that are hitherto disregarded in AI ethics. Lastly, the paper describes measures for successfully cultivating the mentioned virtues in organizations dealing with AI research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published in this issue including one about the ethical issues in supply chain management, one about the ethical aspects of Internet marketing, and another one about network ethics and relationships between the film and stakeholders.

In this editorial to a collection of papers on ethics in small firms, the case is made for greater use of high quality empirical research on business ethics. Sociological perspectives have much to offer to the field of business ethics that continues to be dominated by normative, moral philosophy. The second contribution of the paper is to argue for a reorientation away from the large multi-national firm as a benchmark subject of business ethics research. One important point of view to be included is that of the small firm, which remains the dominant organisation form throughout all the OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the call for papers for the journal. The authors note that the role of business in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been narrowed and has been severed from its ethical roots. Relevant experts are invited to submit papers that will broaden the scope of CSR research, especially in Europe where business ethics have traditionally rested on solid social and public ethics. The call for papers is addressed to a broad, interdisciplinary group of experts and the selected papers will be published as a special issue of the "Journal of Business Ethics."

This paper introduces the special issue of papers selected from those presented at the International Conference on Business Ethics in Transitional Economies, held March 20-22, 2002 in Celakovice and Prague, Czech Republic. A brief background on the conference is given, and a summary of the papers offered in this special issue is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Chinese private companies have improved a lot in corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, especially in the philanthropic area. However, private companies' awareness and performance of social responsibility still have a big disparity with SOEs. And private companies' policy of social responsibility is subjective and preferential. To explain this contradiction, this paper tries to introduce political connection and, based on stakeholder salience theory, to test how political connection changes managers' perception of stakeholders' relative importance and cause changes in stakeholders' satisfaction level of social responsibility requirement. The result shows that (1) political connection has positive influence on private companies' CSR; (2) companies with political connection are significantly better than the ones without political connection in society-oriented and customers-oriented responsibility; (3) two kinds of companies have no significant difference in investors-oriented responsibility; (4) as for government-oriented and employee-oriented responsibility, companies with political connection are worse than ones without political connection. These findings are significant for China's future construction of competition system and private companies' choice of stakeholders and future investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to reflect on the origins and meanings of names describing investment practices that integrate a consideration of environmental, social and corporate governance issues in the academic literature. A review of 190 academic papers spanning the period from 1975 to mid-2009 was conducted. This exploratory study evaluated the associations and disassociations of the primary name assigned to this genre of investment with variables grouped into five domains, namely Primary Ethical Position, Investment Strategy, Publication Date, Regions Covered and Periodical Type. The study indicated that papers coded as expressing a deontological ethical position were more frequently associated with the name Ethical Investment, whereas those with an ambiguous ethical position were less frequently associated with Ethical Investment. Three investment strategies (positive screening, best-in-class and cause-based investing) were unusually associated with the primary name Responsible Investment. A strong preference for the name Ethical Investment was noted in the United Kingdom, and contrasted starkly with an apparent aversion for this name in the United States. The name Ethical Investment is significantly more frequently used in journals dealing with ethics, business ethics and philosophy than in finance, economic and investment journals. Finally, the study yielded some weak hints that the name Responsible Investment might perhaps be linked to an egoist ethical position. On the basis of this, and because these have already been substantively linked through the Principles for Responsible Investment in the popular discourse, we follow the heuristic tradition set by Sparkes (Business Ethics Eur Rev 10:194-201, ), and propose that Responsible Investment be defined as 'Investment practices that integrate a consideration of ESG issues with the primary purpose of delivering higher-risk-adjusted financial returns'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with an ever-growing number of ethical marketing issues and uncertainty about the impact of specialized ethics journals, researchers are struggling to keep abreast of developments in the field. In order to address these challenges, our paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature on marketing ethics over almost 50 years, offers a citation analysis and develops a unique marketing ethics impact factor (MEIF). We contribute to the field in three important ways. First, we present a state-of-the-art picture of marketing ethics research. This provides an account of the research focus in each decade, assesses the importance of specific topics in the debate and identifies existing research gaps. Second, we identify the most influential papers and researchers in the marketing ethics area. Third, we evaluate the most important journals in terms of their impact on marketing ethics. To this end, we have developed an MEIF. This improves our ability to judge a journal’s influence on this particular sub-discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the development of corporate governance regulations in emerging economies, using the case of Bangladesh. In particular, the paper considers three issues: What type of corporate governance model may be suitable for an emerging economy such as Bangladesh? What type of model has Bangladesh adopted in reality? and What has prompted such adoption? By analysing the corporate environment and corporate governance regulations, the paper finds that, like many other developing nations, Bangladesh has also adopted the Anglo-American shareholder model of corporate governance. Analysis of behaviours of principal actors in the Bangladeshi corporate governance scenario, using new institutionalism as a theoretical foundation, then reveals that such adoption may be prompted by exposure to legitimacy threats rather than efficiency reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an examination of the role of trust in the previous seven papers in this issue of the Journal. Trust and trustworthiness are briefly characterized; their importance in business itself and in business ethics is briefly described; and each paper is discussed in relation to how trust figures in the ethical issues it raises. The overall discussion brings out the need for further work on the nature of trust and on the elements in business, such as transparency, that apparently help to sustain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper maps out an alternative to a behavioural (economic) approach to business ethics. Special attention is paid to the fundamental philosophical principle that any moral `ought' implies a practical `can', which the paper interprets with regard to the economic viability of moral agency of the firm under the conditions of the market economy, in particular competition. The paper details an economic understanding of business ethics with regard to classical and neo-classical views, on the one hand, and institutional, libertarian thought, on the other hand. Implications are derived regarding unintentional and passive intentional moral agency of the firm. The paper moves on to suggest that moral agency can be economically viable in competitive `market' interactions, which is conventionally disputed by classical/neo-classical and institutional, libertarian economics. The paper here conceptualises active moral agency of the firm as the utilisation of ethical capital in firm-stakeholder interactions. This yields a reinterpretation of instrumental stakeholder theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the intuition from the game of chicken to model client-auditor financial reporting and audit effort strategies. Within an ethical context, our model is concerned with the client misreporting and its detection by the auditor. The paper uses a welfare game (similar to the game of chicken) to more formally model client-auditor strategies. The welfare game is then extended to provide additional insight into ethical and audit effort issues. Such a welfare game provides equilibrium in mixed strategies. This mixed strategy solution makes possible four outcomes from the game: 1) Financial Statements are fairly presented by client and the auditor performs a normal audit, 2) Financial Statements are fairly presented by client and the auditor performs an extended audit (over auditing), 3) Financial Statements are misstated by client and detected by the auditor, and 4) Financial Statements are misstated by client and not detected by the auditor (audit failure despite no intended unethical action on the part of the auditor). The first extension of the welfare game allows clients to be ethical or unethical clients. Unethical clients are rewarded for misreporting because the auditor wishes to minimize audit effort for ethical clients. The second extension allows the client to unknowingly misstate the financial statements; the client "strategy" then becomes random (a play of nature). The auditor must distinguish between this random play and the strategic play of the welfare game. Finally auditor ethics are considered and the influence of auditor ethics on reducing failed audits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly reviews the theories that seek to explain the phenomenon of corporate charitable donations and then provides a review of the empirical issues that have arisen in previous studies in this area. The findings of an analysis of charitable donations data from the entire U.K. FTSE index for the years 1985-2000 are then reported. These findings include the observation of a time-related increase in charitable donations, which is compared with an earlier study to give a 24 year history of charitable donations in the U.K. The findings note little responsiveness of the monetary value of charitable donations to the economic performance of firms. An international comparison over time against U.S. trends is also reported and shows how U.S. corporations have traditionally been more generous than U.K. firms, but that the trend in the U.S. is downwards. Membership of a U.K.-based "tithing" club (the PerCent Club) is shown to be associated with higher profit performance against non-members. Members' charitable contributions against profit are shown to be higher than the FTSE mean although short of the 0.5% target figure in "cash" terms. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of these findings in relation to the theoretical positions advanced for corporate philanthropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proportion of business ethics literature devoted to accounting and the proportion of academic accounting literature devoted to ethical issues are both small, yet over the past two decades there has been a steady accumulation of research devoted to ethical issues in accounting. Based on a database of more than 500 articles gathered from a wide range of accounting and business ethics academic journals, this paper describes and analyses the characteristics of what has been published in the past 20 years or so. It identifies and explores patterns and trends in publication outlets and the type of research conducted. Furthermore, through a comparison with issues that have been raised in the general business ethics literature, it offers guidance to researchers who intend to take the field of accounting ethics forward using empirical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay, and the special issue it introduces, sets out to reignite ethical interrogations of the theory and practice of Human Resource Management (HRM). To cultivate greater levels of boundary-spanning debate about the ethics of HRM, we develop a framework of four tenors for scholarly work: the ethical-declarative, the ethical-subjunctive, the ethical-ethnographic, the ethical-systemic. Each of these tenors denotes particular grounds for ethical critique and encourages scholars to consider the subjects and objects of their enquiry, the disciplinary scope of their work and the limits to subsequent claims about ethics and HRM. We provisionally locate each of the papers comprising the special issue with regard to one, or more, of these tenors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short theoretical paper elucidates a plausible theory about the Global Financial Crisis and the role of senior financial corporate directors in that crisis. The paper presents a theory of the Global Financial Crisis which argues that psychopaths working in corporations and in financial corporations, in particular, have had a major part in causing the crisis. This paper is thus a very short theoretical paper but is one that may be very important to the future of capitalism because it discusses significant ways in which Corporate Psychopaths may have acted recently, to the detriment of many. Further research into this theory is called for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any academic discipline, published articles in respective journals represent 'production units' of scientific knowledge, and bibliometric distributions reflect the patterns in such outputs across authors or 'producers.' Closely following the analysis approach used for similar studies in the economics and finance literature, we present the first study to examine whether there exists an empirical regularity in the bibliometric patterns of research productivity in the business ethics literature. Our results present strong evidence that there indeed exists a distinct empirical regularity. It is the so-called Generalized Lotka's Law of scientific productivity pattern: the number of authors publishing n papers is about 1/n of those publishing one paper. We discuss the likely processes that underlie the productivity pattern postulated by the Generalized Lotka's Law. We find that the value of the exponent c is equal to about 2.6 for the comprehensive bibliometric data across the two leading business ethics journals. The observed research productivity pattern in the business ethics area, a relatively young discipline, is interestingly very consistent with those found in much older, related business disciplines like economics, accounting, and finance. We discuss the general implications of our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews a number of huge challenges to ethical leadership in the twenty-first century and concludes that the need for global ethical leadership is not merely a desirable option, but rather - and quite literally - a matter of survival. The crises of the recent past reveal huge, and in some cases criminal, failures of both ethics and leadership in finance, business and government. We posit that mainstream economic theory's construct of ' homo economicus' and its faith in the 'invisible hand' of the market constitute deeply flawed foundations upon which alone policy may be built and, farthermore, that these problematic foundations exert substantial shaping power over the institutional and discursive landscapes in which international business is transacted. Analogously, we argue that dominant approaches to business ethics and corporate social responsibility are, if not incorrect, at least in need of revisiting in terms of questioning their basic assumptions. Instead of the smugness of Western (especially Anglo-American) attitudes towards other ways of thinking, valuing and organising, it appears clear that openness, cooperation and co-creation between the developed and developing worlds is a basic prerequisite for dealing with the global challenges facing not just leaders, but humanity as a whole. This objective of stimulating discussion between dominant and marginal voices has guided our selection of papers for this Special Issue. We have thus included not only representatives of research from within the parameters of mainstream business ethics, IB or leadership scholarship, but also innovative contributions from fields such as military history, information technology, regulation, spirituality and sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes its point of departure in an article by Stevens [Stevens, B.: 1994, Journal of Business Ethics 54, 163–171], in which she identified a lack of knowledge regarding how corporate codes of ethics are communicated and affect behavior in organizations. Taking heed of this suggested gap, we review studies on corporate codes of ethics with an empirical content, published since 1994. The conclusion of the review is that we still lack knowledge on how codes work, how they are communicated and how they are transformed inside organizations. Stevens’ plea could even be extended, arguing that the knowledge gap might be of even more significance than in the mid-1990s. Some directions for how this situation can be approached in future studies are outlined in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section, I discuss “what is spirituality?” and in the section that follows, I examine some of the implications of my definition to the teaching of spirituality in an undergraduate business ethics course. For the purposes of this paper, spirituality is defined as the planned experience (the inner feeling) of blending integrity and integration through 1 – acceptance (of the past), 2 – commitment (to the future), 3 – reasonable choice, 4 – mindful action, and 5 –continuous dialog (both internal and external). This definition is a work-in-progress and offered mainly as a point of departure rather than a final destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines the language drawn on to describe socially responsible activities (CSR) in the context of the corporate web page. I argue that constructions of CSR are made plausible and legitimised according to the context of the expression. The web site is a genre of communication which addresses a broad and discerning audience; hence fractures in the institutionalised nature of argument may be apparent. The focus of this paper is to examine how the rhetoric of CSR is legitimised and to develop a framework of argumentation repertoires that operate in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparers of financial statements are in a position to manipulate the view of economic reality presented in those statements to interested parties. This paper examines two principal categories of manipulative behaviour. The term `macro-manipulation' is used to describe the lobbying of regulators to persuade them to produce regulation that is more favourable to the interests of preparers. "Micro-manipulation" describes the management of accounting figures to produce a biased view at the entity level. Both categories of manipulation can be viewed as attempts at creativity by financial statement preparers. The paper analyses two cases of manipulation. First, it describes a recent case of significant and successful lobbying against the accounting regulator in the USA. The second case examines some recent Spanish earnings manipulation to demonstrate the effects of biased reporting at the entity level. Both types of creativity are considered in an ethical context. The paper concludes that the manipulations described in it can be regarded as morally reprehensible. They are not fair to users, they involve an unjust exercise of power, and they tend to weaken the authority of accounting regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of literature on ethical or socially responsible investment across a range of disciplines. This paper highlights the key themes in the field and identifies some of the major theoretical and practical challenges facing both scholars and practitioners. One of these challenges is understanding better the complexity of the relationship between such investment practices and corporate behavior. Noting that ethical investment is seldom characterized by agreement about what it actually constitutes, and that much of the extant research focuses on a narrow set of issues, the paper argues that there are benefits associated with examining ethical investment as a process [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests that consumers and their behaviors deserve (much) more attention in our field. After a few website references (about ethical shopping and ethical trade initiatives) and after a brief literature review of recent business ethics and consumer behavior literature conceptual frameworks are suggested. As an open end, the paper contains some empirical references, related to consumer honesty, tax loyalty and to motives for buying organic food, and suggests the development of a consumer morality measurement instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scale and asymmetry of commercial technology firms' power over people through data, combined with the increasing involvement of the private sector in public governance, means that increasingly, people do not have the ability to opt out of engaging with technology firms. At the same time, those firms are increasingly intervening on the population level in ways that have implications for social and political life. This creates the potential for power relations of domination, and demands that we decide what constitutes the legitimacy to act on the public. Business ethics and private law are not designed to answer these questions, which are primarily political. If people have lost the right to disengage with commercial technologies, we may need to hold the companies that offer them to the same standards to which we hold the public sector. This paper first defines the problem and demonstrates that it is significant and widespread, and then argues for the development of an overarching normative framework for what constitutes non-domination with regard to digital technologies. Such a framework must involve a nuanced idea of political power and accountability that can respond not only to the legality of corporate behaviour, but to its legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to bridge business ethics to corporate social responsibility including the social and environmental dimensions. The objective of the paper is to suggest a conceptual methodology with which ethics of corporate environmental management tools can be considered. The method includes two stages that are required for a shift away from the current dominant unsustainable paradigm and toward a more sustainable paradigm. The first stage is paradigmatic, metaphoric and normative. The second stage is a practical stage, which in turn, is analytic, descriptive and positive. The method is applied to common industrial metabolism tools of ecological footprints (EF), environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and industrial ecology (IE). The application shows that all three tools can be used in business ethics, in particular, when the first stage of the method is applied to their use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is an important phenomenon to reduce organisational complexity and uncertainty. In the literature many types of trust are distinguished. An important framework to understand the variety and development of trust in organisations is provided by Zucker. She distinguishes three types of trust: • process-based trust • institutional-based trust • characteristic-based trust In this article we will add a fourth type: values-based trust. Similarly, it is customary in scientific communication to distinguish four main communication functions: • registration • archiving • certification • awareness. These types of trust and the communication functions offer somewhat similar classification schemes. In this paper we will elaborate on these classification schemes with the aim to analyse possible similarities or even mapping. Such similarities will allow drawing conclusions on the development of trust in a (virtual) organisation in general and the process of scientific communication as a special kind of a (virtual) organisation in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the influence of emotion on individuals' ethical decisions has been identified by numerous researchers, little is known about how emotions influence individuals' ethical decision process. Thus, it is not clear whether different emotions promote and/or discourage ethical decisionmaking in the workplace. To address this gap, this paper develops a model that illustrates how emotion affects the components of individuals' ethical decision-making process. The model is developed by integrating research findings that consider the two dimensions of emotion, arousal and feeling state, into an applied cognitive-developmental perspective on the process of ethical decision-making. The model demonstrates that certain emotional states influence the individual's propensity to identify ethical dilemmas, facilitate the formation of the individual's prescriptive judgments at sophisticated levels of moral development, lead to ethical decision choices that are consistent with the individual's prescriptive judgements, and promote the individual's compliance with his or her ethical decision choices. In particular, the model suggests that individuals experiencing arousal and positive affect resolve ethical dilemmas in a manner consistent with more sophisticated cognitive moral structures. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging the increasing attention in the literature devoted to the incorporation of ethical considerations into consumers' purchase decisions, this paper explores the notion of an ethical product. It is argued that ethical issues have long been involved in consumers' product evaluations, but that there has been little academic investigation of ethics in terms of product concepts and theories. Ethics are thus examined in the context of the augmented product concept, and two dimensions of ethical augmentation are identified: direction and content. These dimensions are set out and discussed at some length, and then they are used to construct an ethical product matrix. It is shown how this could be used to provide structure and coherence to examinations of the perceived ethics of any given product offering. The implications of the analysis offered in the paper are discussed, and a number of limitations of the ethical product notion are identified. Finally some conclusions and directions for future research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators on empirical research in business ethics have recommended that use should be made of meta-analysis -- the quantitative analysis of a group of research studies. This paper elaborates upon those recommendations by conducting, as a "case study" for further reflection, a meta-analysis of studies of accountants' organizational-professional conflict (OPC) previously published in accounting and psychology journals. Of five variables capable of analysis, only the population correlation coefficient between OPC and organizational tenure is identified. It was not possible to find the population correlation coefficient of the other four variables, for which several possible reasons are suggested. The paper then shows how meta-analysis can make a valuable contribution, even when the substantive findings are limited, by providing guidance for future research and a safeguard against the drawing of unjustified conclusions, to which the more usual narrative reviews of literature are prone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an attempt to develop a code of ethics for marketing educators at colleges and universities throughout the world. The paper describes the process of development and the outcome. The code of ethics details social responsibilities of marketing educators in relation to certain publics and actions. Social responsibilities related to certain publics include ethical prescriptions such as treating others with respect and dignity, upholding justice, providing information to others about matters that may significantly affect their well being, providing access to needed and affordable resources, protecting the privacy of others, allowing the expression of a grievance and providing a mechanism for redress, providing fair credit, and ensuring safety. Social responsibilities related to certain actions include avoiding conflict of interest; conducting ourselves with the highest standards of intellectual honesty, professionalism, and objectivity; adhering to all policies of our academic institutions and challenging unjust or ineffective policies; mentoring our junior colleagues and students; being selfless in contributing to the marketing discipline and society at large, and defending the principles of academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical concern for firms pursuing international expansion strategies involves identifying countries that offer a good fit with the firm's overall ethical orientation. Unfortunately, little has been written to aid firms in identifying countries that offer this type of fit. This paper presents a model that combines the concepts of strategic management, cross-cultural management, business ethics, and the management science technique of goal programming. The purpose of the model is to aid managers in identifying countries for international expansion that offer the best fit with the firm's ethical orientation. The paper also extends the existing literature on cross-cultural management and business ethics by applying a computer optimization model to evaluate potential countries for international expansion in a way that has not been done before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North American and West European academics are accepting offers to speak or teach about business ethics to audiences in countries with transitional economies. Such engagements should not be accepted without an appreciation for the challenges involved. This paper outlines the dynamics of business ethics in these former communist countries and describes circumstances relating to ethical training, and course content and pedagogy. A concluding section of the paper identifies some guidelines that instructors should consider before becoming involved with ethical training in transitional economies. The principle message to be received from this paper is that instructors should avoid being ethics missionaries with preconceived ideals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article about the social responsibility of the large corporation is not a paper about stewardship in general. If it were, it would have to focus primarily on the principle of long-term market accountability and the related principle of fidelity to long-term stockholder interests. Most of management's stewardship responsibilities can be subsumed under those two principles. This paper will deal with areas in which those two principles alone are not adequate to define management's stewardship responsibilities. These areas of social accountability occur chiefly where the interests of employees or the general public are at stake - where their human and social purposes sometimes collide with the more limited commercial purposes of the large corporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the topic of 'soft skills' as an intrinsic part of successful leadership. The first part of the paper presents a literature review about the shift in perspective in recent years on what matters in leadership, and the significant changes this prompted in some areas of education and corporate recruitment. In the second part, the findings of a year round study conducted among Los Angeles based workforce members in an MBA program are presented. By utilizing a multi-method approach, consisting of a survey model with three open ended, interview style questions, and data analysis in phenomenological trend, a number of interesting findings emerged, supporting the literature reviewed, that soft leadership skills, such as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, are steadily on the rise, and that greater attention should be apportioned to strengthen these skills in future leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are causing global climate change (GCC), and such climate change causes harms. Robin Attfield explained how individuals should be understood to be culpable for these harms. In this paper, I use a critical analysis of Attfield's explanatory framework to explore further difficulties in accounting for corporate responsibility for these harms. I begin by arguing that there are some problems with his framework as it is applied to individuals that emit greenhouse gases (GHGs). I then show that it will be very difficult to extend this framework to corporations. This is not a criticism of Attfield's work (as he does not discuss corporate responsibility for those harms associated with GCC), but it will serve to show the difficulty in philosophically explaining corporations' moral culpability when it comes to these harms. In fact, one positive conclusion of this paper is that it highlights a new area of concern that has been ignored in discussions of corporate responsibilities-that of mediated responsibilities-which is how Attfield understands our responsibilities regarding GCC. The discussion of this concern will draw attention to another positive conclusion of this paper: the harms associated with CO are very unlike the harms associated with other airborne-emitted substances, which will indicate that we will need new ways of understanding how individuals and corporations are philosophically responsible for these harms. The final positive conclusion of this paper will be a discussion of what the constraints should be on new approaches to explaining our culpability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how it is possible for firms in controversial sectors, which are often marked by social taboos and moral debates, to act in socially responsible ways, and whether a firm can be socially responsible if it produces products harmful to society or individuals. It contends that a utilitarian justification can be used to support the legal and regulated provision of goods and services in these areas, and the regulated and legal provision of these areas produces less harm than the real alternative-illegal and unregulated supply. Utilitarianism is concerned as much with harm minimisation as good maximisation, and both are equally important when it comes to maximising welfare (Bentham 1789, ; Mill [1863] ). Any adequate theory of CSR must, therefore, have the capacity to handle a business that minimises harm as well as those that more straightforwardly maximise good. In this paper we therefore attempt two tasks. First, we argue that the legal but regulated provision of products and services may be better from an overall utilitarian perspective than a situation in which these harmful or immoral goods and services are illegal but procurable via a black market. Porter and Kramer's () strategic CSR framework is then presented to describe how firms in these controversial sectors can act in socially responsible ways. This model highlights the importance of firm strategy in selecting areas of socially responsible behaviours that can be acted upon by firms in each industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do foreign direct investment (FDI) and international business ventures promote positive social and economic development in emerging nations? This question will always prove contentious. First, the impacts differ according to context. Second, the social consequences and spillover effects of knowledge diffusion and technology-sharing may be limited and hard to measure. Third, contributions to enhancing social responsibility and improving living standards in host countries are delayed in effect, causally complex, and also hard to measure. Outcomes often critically depend on collaboration of governments, international institutions, the business world, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Research in this area is challenging and requires interdisciplinary collaboration between economists, financial experts, sociologists, ethicists, and other specialists. This paper explores: (1) the evidence to support the proposition that FDI and international business improve social conditions in less-developed countries, and: (2) how these improvements are linked to strategies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical business practice. The paper draws insights from development, FDI, poverty alleviation, and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) literature. Applications are demonstrated using examples from poverty-stricken areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper attempts not only to argue theoretically but also to provide practical evidence. The approach is simultaneously descriptive, analytical, and prescriptive in order to address a wide audience. It also highlights issues and trends for further academic research and presents the viewpoint that some limitations lie in the nature of ethics frameworks widely referenced in business and that these often fail to consider the compatibility of ethical constructs with relevant incentives. In this vein, we explore the application of Homann's framework for advantage and incentive-based ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leadership has become a more popular term than management, even though it is understood that both phenomena represent important organizational behaviors. This paper focuses on empathy in leadership, and presents the findings of a study conducted among business students over the course of 3 years. Finding that empathy consistently ranked lowest in the ratings, the researchers set out to discover the driving motives behind this invariable trend, and conducted a second study to obtain opinions about possible underlying factors. The paper presents the findings of both studies, as well as literature reviews on the differences between management and leadership, a historical overview of leadership, a reflection of 21st century leadership, the ongoing debate on the effects of corporate psychopaths on ethical performance, and scholars' perception on empathy in corporate leadership. The findings indicate the need for a paradigm shift in corporations as well as business schools in regards to leaders' required skills, and suggest a proactive approach from business faculty to change the current paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary academic and policy discussions of corporate governance tend to accord primacy to the interests of shareholders. While the primacy (descriptive or prescriptive) of shareholders is argued for in various ways, others seek to promote a wider stakeholder model of the firm and its governance. In both cases, the interests of creditors tend to be neglected. In this paper, the fundamental position of creditors in a system of corporate law that offers limited liability is reasserted and explained, and the implications explored. It is demonstrated that there are, in effect, two modes of governance possible for a limited liability corporation: the 'normal' mode, when shareholders' interests are primary, and the 'distressed' mode, when creditors' interests are paramount. As a result of this analysis, writers on corporate governance who are influenced by certain managerial myths or economic theories of the firm are encouraged to view the position of shareholders in a more informed light. Writers on business ethics, who often find themselves contending, perhaps implicitly, with inappropriate understandings of the nature of business corporations and their governance, are similarly alerted to the weakness of certain positions perceived as antithetical to their agenda. Finally, business ethicists who advocate a stakeholder perspective are encouraged to recognize the position of creditors and to pay more attention to them as a stakeholder group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency in business and society is one of the challenges raised in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate by Benedict XVI. This paper focuses on the issue by extending the literature on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate transparency in two dimensions. First, it reviews the understanding and framing of the transparency issue in Caritas in Veritate and in a selection of relevant Catholic Social Teaching (CST) publications. Second, this paper provides normative indications for corporate transparency decisions which reflect four permanent principles of CST, that is, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, and respect for the human being. Inasmuch as human beings are worthy of love for their own sakes, the dimension of gift should always be present in relationships among them. This paper also provides insights for further studies on corporate transparency and the impact of religion on business ethics and corporate social responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Moore analyzing the regulatory environment provided in Great Britain by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and an article by McDonald concerning business ethics education in New Zealand.

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how business ethics is connected with the well-being of a nation. There has been active research in the well-being of nations across the globe in the last two decades, resulting in substantial theoretical progress and a wealth of empirical data on the well-beings of different nations across the globe. Dissatisfied with the conventional measures such as the GDP, well-being researchers have been developing alternative measures that can better capture the true nature of the well-being of a country. The paper begins by examining why the GDP is inadequate as a good measure of the well-being of a country. Major alternative proposals on well-being or similar measures are summarized. Objective well-being of a nation refers to the conditions of well-being of a country. Subjective well-being of a nation is the perceptions of its citizens with regard to their satisfaction with the major conditions of living in that nation. The paper presents two central arguments leading to the conclusion that business ethics is an integral part of the well-being of a country. The first argument utilizes the concept of workplace well-being to establish the linkage. The second argument uses evidence from a recent survey of the perceptions of Taiwanese people on business ethics in relation to the well-being of a nation. The paper also reveals that common values tie the two together at a deeper level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the influence of modernisation on the moral judgements of 211 managers in the People’s Republic of China, based on their responses to a series of vignettes depicting potentially unethical behaviour in organisations. Since modernisation can take many forms, this paper takes a multi dimensional approach to examining levels of modernisation in different provinces in China. Three different measures are used, believed to represent different aspects of the modernisation process. These include the level of industrialisation of various provinces, the level of marketisation, or progress toward a market-based economy, and a new measure of Westernisation, or the extent to which individuals adopt aspects of Western lifestyle and materialism. This latter measure is developed and tested in the present study. Statistically significant associations between these three measures of modernisation and managers’ moral judgements were observed and the implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]