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31Focusing on Ethics and Broadening our Intellectual BaseJournal of Business Ethics 140 (1): 1-3. 2017.
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28Profit and Other Values: Thick Evaluation in Decision MakingBusiness Ethics Quarterly 27 (3): 353-379. 2017.ABSTRACT:Profit maximizers have reasons to agree with stakeholder theorists that managers may need to consider different values simultaneously in decision making. However, it remains unclear how maximizing a single value can be reconciled with simultaneously considering different values. A solution can neither be found in substantive normative philosophical theories, nor in postulating the maximization of profit. Managers make sense of the values in a situation by means of the many thick value c…Read more
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8Cambridge Handbook of Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2017.While there is a large and ever-expanding body of work on the fields of business ethics and corporate social responsibility, there is a noted absence of a single source on the methodology and research approaches to these fields. In this book, the first of its kind, leading scholars in the fields gather to analyse a range of philosophical and empirical approaches to research in business ethics and CSR. It covers such sections as historical approaches, normative and behavioural methodologies, quan…Read more
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60The New Story of Business: Towards a More Responsible CapitalismBusiness and Society Review 122 (3): 449-465. 2017.Business is undergoing a conceptual revolution. Since the Global Financial Crisis there are many new ideas and proposals to make capitalism more responsible. The purpose of this paper is to identify key flaws in the “old story” of capitalism. Six principles are explained that taken together form the basis for a new story of business, one of responsible capitalism.
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11Who's Who in Business Ethics: A Profile of Richard T. De GeorgeBusiness Ethics: A European Review 5 (1): 47-51. 1996.For more than thirty years the writings and influence of one man in particular have dominated and directed the field of modern business ethics. We are indebted to two of his fellow‐Americans for this portrait of Richard T. De George. R. Edward Freeman is the Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration and Director of the Olsson Center for Ethics at The Darden School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22906‐6550; and Martin Calkins, SJ, is a Research Assistant in the Olss…Read more
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Anatol Rapoport, Melvin J. Guyer, and David G. Gordon's "The 2 x 2 Game" (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 39 (2): 292. 1978.
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503The Impossibility of the Separation Thesis: A Response to Joakim SandbergBusiness Ethics Quarterly 18 (4): 541-548. 2008.Distinguishing “business” concerns from “ethical” values is not only an unfruitful and meaningless task, it is also an impossible endeavor. Nevertheless, fruitless attempts to separate facts from values produce detrimental second-order effects, both for theory and practice, and should therefore be abandoned. We highlight examples of exemplary research that integrate economic and moral considerations, and point the way to a business ethics discipline that breaks new ground by putting ideas and na…Read more
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84The ethics of greenmailJournal of Business Ethics 6 (3). 1987.In the contemporary flurry of hostile corporate takeover activity, the ethics of the practice of greenmail have been called into question. The authors provide an account of greenmail in parallel with Daniel Ellsberg's conception of blackmail, as consisting of two conditions: a threat condition and a compliance condition.The analysis then proceeds to consider two questions: Is all greenmail morally wrong? Are all hostile takeovers morally wrong? The authors conclude that there is no basis for ans…Read more
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164Managing for Stakeholders: Trade-offs or Value Creation (review)Journal of Business Ethics 96 (S1): 7-9. 2010.
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15Special Issue on Gender, Business Ethics, and Corporate Social ResponsibilityBusiness Ethics Quarterly 23 (4): 640-643. 2013.
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34Intra‐stakeholder alliances in plant‐closing decisions: A stakeholder theory approachBusiness Ethics: A European Review 26 (2): 97-111. 2017.This article discusses plant-closing decisions by multinational enterprises applying a stakeholder theory approach. In particular, we focus on the emergence of “intra-stakeholder alliances,” that is, alliances among the various stakeholder groups of a specific corporation. We analyze the emergence of stakeholder alliances in reaction to MNEs' decisions to terminate production locally and discuss their influence on the outcomes of such decisions. Our research is inspired by two exceptional case s…Read more
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125Values, Authenticity, and Responsible LeadershipJournal of Business Ethics 98 (S1): 15-23. 2011.The recent financial crisis has prompted questioning of our basic ideas about capitalism and the role of business in society. As scholars are calling for “responsible leadership” to become more of the norm, organizations are being pushed to enact new values, such as “responsibility” and “sustainability,” and pay more attention to the effects of their actions on their stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to open up a line of research in business ethics on the concept of “ authenticity ” as …Read more
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32Special Issue on Stakeholder Thinking: A Tribute to Juha Nasi (review)Journal of Business Ethics 96 (S1): 1-1. 2010.
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14Erratum to: Scandinavian Stakeholder Thinking: Seminal Offerings from the Late Juha NäsiJournal of Business Ethics 127 (1): 107-107. 2015.In this article, we first provide evidence that Scandinavian contributions to stakeholder theory over the past 50 years play a much larger role in its development than is presently acknowledged. These contributions include the first publication and description of the term “stakeholder”, the first stakeholder map, and the development of three fundamental tenets of stakeholder theory: jointness of interests, cooperative strategic posture, and rejection of a narrowly economic view of the firm. We t…Read more
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180Some Problems with Employee MonitoringJournal of Business Ethics 43 (4): 353-361. 2003.Employee monitoring has raised concerns from all areas of society – business organizations, employee interest groups, privacy advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, professional ethicists, and every combination possible. Each advocate has its own rationale for or against employee monitoring whether it be economic, legal, or ethical. However, no matter what the form of reasoning, seven key arguments emerge from the pool of analysis. These arguments have been used equally from all sides of the de…Read more
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26Ethics and HRMBusiness and Professional Ethics Journal 30 (3-4): 269-292. 2011.The development of an ethical perspective of HRM that is both employee centered and explicitly normative and, as such, distinct from dominant and criticalperspectives of HRM has progressed in recent years. Reliance on the traditional “threesome” of rights/justice theories, deontology and consequentialism, however, has limited debate to micro-level issues and the search for a “solution.” By understanding the employment relationship as a stakeholder relationship, we open the ethical analysis of HR…Read more
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142Ethics and agency theory: an introduction (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1992.Agency theory involves what is known as the principal-agent problem, a topic widely discussed in economics, management, and business ethics today. It is a characteristic of nearly all modern business firms that the principals (the owners and shareholders) are not the same people as the agents (the managers who run the firms for the principals). This creates situations in which the goals of the principals may not be the same as the agents--the principals will want growth in profits and stock pric…Read more
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13Clearing the Way for a Life-Centered Ethic for BusinessThe Ruffin Series of the Society for Business Ethics 2 159-165. 2000.I agree with much of Freeman and Reichart’s paper; so, by way of comment, I will simply supplement his argument in two ways. First, agreeing with their conclusion that we can, and should, re-direct business toward environmental protection without embracing a nonanthropocentric ethic, I will show that the pre-occupation of recent and contemporary environmental ethics with the anthropocentrism/non-anthropocentrism debate is avoidable. It rests on a misinterpretation of possible moral responses to …Read more
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10Poverty and the Politics of CapitalismThe Ruffin Series of the Society for Business Ethics 1 31-35. 1998.1. Here’s a way to think about poverty. People who live in poverty do so because they have few opportunities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In fact the gap between rich and poor has increased in recent times due to the more wholesale adoption of capitalist practices around the world. The institutions of business and government conspire to give the poor a Hobson’s choice of minimal wage McJobs or unemployment. Neglect of both urban ghettoes and the rural poor has been systematic, if n…Read more
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4Sagoff’s Environmentalism: An Economic and Ethical CritiqueThe Ruffin Series of the Society for Business Ethics 2 101-114. 2000.
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University of VirginiaRegular Faculty
Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Metaphilosophy |
20th Century Philosophy |