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29Richard Nielsen, the politics of ethics: Methods for acting, learning, and sometimes fighting with others in addressing ethics problems in organizational life (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 32 (4): 565-570. 1998.
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27Creative Financial Methods in Giving BackBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 35 (2-3): 179-197. 2016.Michael Pirron is CEO of Impact Makers, an IT consulting firm based in Virginia. Impact Makers decided to reincorporate as a Benefit Corporation when Virginia passed the legislation. In this interview with Professor Daryl Koehn from DePaul University, Pirron discusses why he chose to reincorporate and their organization’s decision to give all their profits to charity. To do this, Impact Makers set up a new financial innovation to protect the social purpose of the organization. They gave all thei…Read more
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27A virtue ethics critique of ethical dimensions of behavioral economicsBusiness and Society Review 125 (2): 241-260. 2020.Behavioral economics is the latest trendy form of economics. Increasingly theorists are advocating using behavioral economics to do normative ethics or claiming that the behavioralists’ findings render normative claims otiose. I argue in this paper that we should be extremely wary when it comes to accepting any such normative pronouncements. I argue that behavioral economics: (a) minimizes and/or misunderstands the role that character and architectonic life goals play in accounting for the why o…Read more
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26Rethinking the Responsibility of International CorporationsBusiness Ethics Quarterly 3 (2): 177-183. 1993.
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24Dignity in Western Versus in Chinese Cultures: Theoretical Overview and Practical IllustrationsBusiness and Society Review 113 (4): 477-504. 2008.Dignity is an important concept in ethics. Human rights organizations justify rights by appealing to human dignity. Prominent politicians have cited the need to protect human dignity and urged the founding of international institutions. The concept of human dignity is often used to evaluate and critique the ethics of select practices. In addition, the idea of dignity is used as a universal principle to ground universalist business ethics.This paper argues that there are substantial differences b…Read more
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23Why Saying "I'm Sorry" Isn't Good EnoughBusiness Ethics Quarterly 23 (2): 239-268. 2013.The number of corporate apologies has increased dramatically during the past decade. This article delves into the ethics of apologies offered by chief executive officers (CEOs). It examines ways in which public apologies on the part of a representative (CEO) of a corporate body (the firm) differ from both private, interpersonal apologies, on the one hand, and nation-state/collective apologies, on the other. The article then seeks to ground ethically desirable elements of a corporate apology in t…Read more
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22The Ethics of Quality: Problems and Preconditions (review)Journal of Business Ethics 44 (1). 2003.A number of advocates for TQM contend that firms who embrace TQM will automatically and naturally act in ethically sound ways (Roth, 1993; Pace, 1999; Steeples, 1994). This claim is a strong one. This paper assesses its truth. We consider the many ways in which quality initiatives, if undertaken in good faith, can foster sound ethics. We explore the various ways in which TQM presupposes, and thus cannot engender, ethical behavior. And, finally, we identify some of the ethical blind spots in qual…Read more
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21Snow Brand Milk Products (A)Journal of Business Ethics Education 7 103-116. 2010.This three-case series examines the dilemma that faced the Japanese company Snow Brand Milk Products (SBM) as it confronted the task of rebuilding and revitalization after a series of scandals, many self-induced, had threatened the company’s future. The A case begins in spring 2002 when leading consumer activist Nobuko Hiwasa was invited to join Snow Brand’s board of directors. The CEO wanted her to assist in SBM’s revitalization efforts, which were beingimplemented in the wake of two recent sca…Read more
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20Are Benefit Corporations Truly Beneficial?Business and Professional Ethics Journal 35 (2): 165-178. 2016.Michael Hannigan is the CEO and co-founder of Give Something Back Office Supplies, the third largest office supply company on the west coast of the United States. Hannigan began his business in 1991, long before any benefit corporation legislation was enacted. He reincorporated his business as a benefit corporation after California passed such legislation in 2011. On April 23, 2015, he spoke at the 22nd Annual Stakeholder Dialogue Speaker Series convened at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapo…Read more
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19Corporate governance metrics for Asian companies: are they reliable indicators of corporate performance?International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics 5 (4): 241-260. 2010.
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19“Kantian Virtue Ethics in the Context of Business: How Practically Useful Can It Be?” by Daryl KoehnBusiness Ethics Journal Review 2 (3): 15-21. 2014.
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18Re-Thinking Power - Kinds of PowerJames Hillman New York: Doubleday, 1995Business Ethics Quarterly 8 (1): 179-186. 1998.
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16Narrative Business Ethics Versus Narratives Within Business Ethics: Problems and Possibilities From an Aristotelian Virtue Ethics PerspectiveJournal of Business Ethics 189 (4): 763-779. 2024.Applied ethicists’ interest in narratives and narratives ethics has grown steadily. Some thinkers position narratives as supplements to ethics, while others see narratives as new form of ethics comparable to virtue or deontological ethics. In this paper, I analyze some of the main ethical claims being made on behalf of business and literary narratives from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that, while narratives can significantly contribute to the development of our characte…Read more
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16Applying Aristotelian and Confucian Virtue Ethics to Humane Work in the Business ContextHumanistic Management Journal 7 (2): 189-209. 2022.What is humane work? What does such work look like in a business context? This paper articulates two ways of thinking about humane work using an Aristotelian and a Confucian virtue ethics approach. This approach reveals the need to think about (1) work’s connection not merely with autonomy but with self-refinement and self-perfection, with craft, and with the production of genuinely good goods; (2) possible dangers (e.g., the risk of generating envy) of focusing too much on pay issues in connect…Read more
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16Management Ethics: Integrity at Work, Joseph A. Petrick and John F. QuinnBusiness Ethics Quarterly 9 (4): 713-717. 1999.
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16Snow Brand Milk Products (A)Journal of Business Ethics Education 7 103-116. 2010.This three-case series examines the dilemma that faced the Japanese company Snow Brand Milk Products (SBM) as it confronted the task of rebuilding and revitalization after a series of scandals, many self-induced, had threatened the company’s future. The A case begins in spring 2002 when leading consumer activist Nobuko Hiwasa was invited to join Snow Brand’s board of directors. The CEO wanted her to assist in SBM’s revitalization efforts, which were beingimplemented in the wake of two recent sca…Read more
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15John Meriwether and the Promethean hero: A cautionary tale in financial ethicsTeaching Business Ethics 6 (1): 27-43. 2002.
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15Do Investors See Value in Ethically Sound CEO Apologies? Investigating Stock Market Reaction to CEO ApologiesJournal of Business Ethics 152 (2): 311-322. 2018.Since the late 1990s, the number of apologies being offered by CEOs of large companies has exploded. Communication and management scholars have analyzed whether and why some of these apologies are more effective or more ethical than others. Most of these analyses, however, have remained at the anecdotal level. Moreover, the practical, economic consequences of apologies have not been examined. Almost no rigorous or systematic empirical work exists that examines whether stakeholders reward firms w…Read more
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14What Form of Business Regulation is Workable?Business and Professional Ethics Journal 23 (1): 43-63. 2004.
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13Why the New Benefit Corporations May Not Prove to Be Truly Socially BeneficialBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 35 (1): 17-50. 2016.Social enterprises may take a variety of legal forms. This paper focuses primarily upon one particular new form increasingly popular within the United States—the “Benefit Corporation.” I evaluate whether US Benefit Corporations are likely to realize as much social benefit as is frequently claimed. Part One of the paper describes the features of Benefit Corporations as they are constituted in many states. Part Two lays out the benefits extolled by supporters of this US legal corporate form. Part …Read more
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13Ethics, Morality, and Art in the ClassroomJournal of Business Ethics Education 7 213-232. 2010.Scholars are increasingly interested in possible relationships between aesthetics and ethics and in the pedagogical value of art. This paper considers some specific works of art and explores their multi-faceted relation to ethics and morality. I argue that art has both positive and negative relationships to ethics and morality (which I distinguish in a very rough way as the paper progresses). Art works of various sorts may productively be used in the business ethics classroom,but instructors nee…Read more
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12Snow Brand Milk Products (A)Journal of Business Ethics Education 7 103-116. 2010.This three-case series examines the dilemma that faced the Japanese company Snow Brand Milk Products (SBM) as it confronted the task of rebuilding and revitalization after a series of scandals, many self-induced, had threatened the company’s future. The A case begins in spring 2002 when leading consumer activist Nobuko Hiwasa was invited to join Snow Brand’s board of directors. The CEO wanted her to assist in SBM’s revitalization efforts, which were beingimplemented in the wake of two recent sca…Read more
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Philosophy of Action |
Aesthetics |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Asian Philosophy |