Business Ethics in Theory and Practice

by Werhane, Patricia Hogue; Singer, Alan E.

• ISBN13: 9780792358497
• ISBN10: 079235849X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-08-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

This book is a collection of essays devoted to questions of international business that present fresh road maps to analyze business ethics topics of universal concern. Peter Earl and Matthew Hirshberg set up the context with accounts of implications of Western economic theory. Ian Grant raises the question of amorality in business. As Patricia Werhane and Alan Singer conclude, though, ethics is embedded in all that we do. Catherine Casey, Suchitra Mouly, Amelia Smith, Jay Sanakaran, Kate Kearins, Keith Hooper, David Coy, Glynn Owens, and V. Nilakant deal with ethical issues concerning organizational culture, management communication, and employee empowerment, and Ming Singer links moral development to workplace justice. Four studies of cultural traditions, Alejo Sison's study of the Philippines, Shioji and Nakano's analysis of Japanese traditions, and Wong Wai-Ying and Po-Keung Ip's essays on Confucian ethics find that the underlying value system in each culture strongly influences business. Stan Godlovitch and Singer conclude the collection, demonstrating that we have made some moral progress in business, politics, and science, as Werhane points out in her essay on environmental sustainability. New mind sets are crucial for moral and material progress, and, they conclude, we are capable of such development.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(12)
The Ethics of the New Managerialism
Managerialism and the economics of the firm	13	(14)
Peter E. Earl
New organizational cultures and ethical employment practice: a critical discussion	27	(14)
Catherine Casey
Strategic Discourses and Narratives
Environmentally sustainable business and the Rashomon effect	41	(10)
Patricia H. Werhane
Strategic discourse as a technology of power	51	(12)
Kate Kearins
Keith Hooper
David Coy
Empirical Psychology and Business Ethics
Property ethics and starvation	63	(16)
Matthew Hirshberg
The contributions of empirical research towards normative business ethics	79	(8)
Ming Singer
Ethics, aesthetics and empiricism: the case of steroids and sports	87	(14)
Glynn Ownes
The New Zealand Context
Business ethics: is amoral good enough?	101	(12)
Ian Grant
Perceptions of empowerment: insights from New Zealand organisations	113	(18)
V. Suchitra Mouly
Amelia C. Smith
Jayaram Sankaran
Ethics in action: the management of intangibles	131	(14)
V. Nilakant
Ramzi Addison
The Asian Context
Business and culture in the Philippines: a story of gradual progress	145	(22)
Alejo Jose G. Sison
Japanese philosophical traditions and contemporary business practices	167	(10)
Keiichiro Shioji
Chiaki Nakano
Rethinking the presuppositions of business ethics---from an Aristotelian approach to Confucian ethics	177	(12)
Wong Wai-Ying
The traditions of the people of Hong Kong and their relationships to contemporary business practices	189	(16)
Po-Keung IP
Moral Progress in Business and Society
Varieties of progress: commercial, moral and otherwise	205	(16)
Stan Godlovitch
Synergy-orientation and the ``Third Way''	221	(20)
Alan E. Singer
Afterword	241	(2)
Alan E. Singer
Notes on the contributors	243