Business ethics in Europe: a tale of two efforts.

In this article, the author aims to tell the inside story of business ethics in Europe in the last two decades of the century. In the process, the authors came across four questions: 1) Which target group or groups does business ethics in Europe envisage? 2) What exactly is the reception of the ethicists' endeavors among their academic peers, and what is it in the business world? 3) To what extent does the social and economic environment in Europe shape business ethics? and 4) Is it appropriate to present business ethics, first and foremost, as an academic discipline? The discussion of these questions lead to the tricky issues of 'Europe' as a shared experience and 'business ethics' as a social institution. The authors conclude that there is something like European business ethics in the traditional sense, but there is more. To elaborate business ethics at a specific level, we need conceptual instruments that, as yet, are only partly available. To determine which issues are in need of, and accessible to, moral coordination requires still a great deal of effort and cooperative exchange. To grasp the specificities of coordination issues and tradeoffs, attention should be given to what distinguishes the bearers of the European experience, and what unites them.