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2Some Modest Proposals for Improving Business Ethics from Primarily an Aristotelian PerspectiveJournal of Human Values 30 (1): 38-51. 2024.The long-term health of business ethics is suspect. In particular, there are some troubling trends within the discipline’s methodology that should be closely monitored and, in some cases, countered. Furthermore, business ethicists and management theorists should take some steps to make business ethics more robust and more relevant to actual business practice. Part 1 of this article argues that, while the dominance of the social science approach should be curtailed, relations between normative an…Read more
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1Aesthetics and Business Ethics (edited book)Imprint: Springer. 2014.Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said, "Ethics is aesthetics." It is unclear what such a claim might mean and whether it is true. This book explores contentious issues arising at the interface of ethics and aesthetics. The contributions reflect on the status of aesthetic en ethical judgments, the relation of aesthetic beauty and ethical goodness and art and character development. The book further considers the potential role art could play in ethical analysis and in the classroom and explores in wha…Read more
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Chinese Approach to Business EthicsIn Deborah C. Poff & Alex C. Michalos (eds.), Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics, Springer Verlag. pp. 335-337. 2021.
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6Narrative 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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Snow Brand Milk Products (C)Journal of Business Ethics Education 7 125-127. 2010.In the C case, the turnaround at SBM has been effected. Most significant is the company’s realization that it exists to serve the consumer and, through that service, the broader society. This brief case outlines the successes Hiwasa pushed SBM management to accomplish and introduces the challenges the company faced in 2009: primarily, continuing to build its corporate social responsibility approach and addressing environmental and social issues.
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4Capitalism & ethicsBusiness Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 32 (S1): 1-3. 2023.Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 32, Issue S1, Page 1-3, April 2023.
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12Applying 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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2The Ethics of Biobusiness, Technology, and Genetic EngineeringBulletin of Science, Technology and Society 20 (1): 10-18. 2000.When we think of ethics in medicine or business, we typically focus on whether the dignity and autonomy of patients and stakeholders are being respected. Ethicists have devoted a great deal of energy to showing how particular practices either foster or damage healthy personal relations. It is my contention that these analyses, while sometimes insightful, do not grapple with the key question: What does it mean to act in an increasingly technological age? Is it legitimate simply to apply some set …Read more
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22A 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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7Toward a New (Old) Theory of Responsibility: Moving Beyond AccountabilitySpringer Verlag. 2019.This book offers a much needed overview of the neglected notion of responsibility. Instead of offering vague talk about “individual responsibility” or “corporate responsibility,” Daryl Koehn examines in detail four accounts of responsibility, taking care to specify what responsibility does and does not mean in each account. She argues for a return to the ancient concept of Socratic dialogical responsibility, a concept that avoids many of the problems inherent in the other accounts. After examini…Read more
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32How Would Confucian Virtue Ethics for Business Differ from Aristotelian Virtue Ethics?Journal of Business Ethics 165 (2): 205-219. 2020.Confucianism is potentially relevant to business ethics and business practice in many ways. Although some scholars have seen Confucian thought as applicable to corporate social responsibility :433–451, 2009) and to corporate governance :30–43, 2013), only a few business ethicists :415–431, 2001b; Journal of Business Ethics 116:703–715, 2013; Romar in Journal of Business Ethics 38:119–131, 2002; Lam in The Analects, Penguin Classics, London, 2003; Chan in Journal of Business Ethics 77:347–360, 20…Read more
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17Re-Thinking Power - Kinds of PowerJames Hillman New York: Doubleday, 1995Business Ethics Quarterly 8 (1): 179-186. 1998.
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11Management Ethics: Integrity at Work, Joseph A. Petrick and John F. QuinnBusiness Ethics Quarterly 9 (4): 713-717. 1999.
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2Spotting Ethical Spin-Offs: A Review of Michael Santoro’s Profits and Principles - Profits and Principles: Global Capitalism and Human Rights in ChinaMichael A. Santoro Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000 $26.00 (review)Business Ethics Quarterly 13 (2): 257-260. 2003.
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5Snow Brand Milk Products (B)Journal of Business Ethics Education 7 117-124. 2010.The B case jumps ahead several years and outlines the turnaround efforts SBM undertook to address its grave missteps: shifting to a consumer-oriented, integrity-focused management style; providing greater transparency and communication; and establishing a corporate ethics committee and a Snow Brands Code of Conduct. In June 2002, after much consideration and reflection on Snow Brand’s issues (as outlined in the A case), Hiwasa joined its new board as its sole outside director, serving as the imp…Read more
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8Snow 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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10Do 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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Review of Virtue in Business: Conversations with Aristotle by Edwin Hartman (review)Journal of Business Ethics 142 (3): 617-619. 2017.
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5Reframing Economic Ethics: The Philosophical Foundations of Humanistic Management, by Claus Dierksmeier. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 127 pp. ISBN: 978-3-3193-2299-5 (review)Business Ethics Quarterly 27 (3): 459-462. 2017.
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61Virtue Ethics, the Firm, and Moral PsychologyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 8 (3): 497-513. 1998.Business ethicists have increasingly used Aristotelian “virtue ethics” to analyze the actions of business people and to explore the question of what the standard of ethical behavior is. These analyses have raised many important issues and opened up new avenuesfor research. But the time has come to examine in some detail possible limitations or weaknesses in virtue ethics. This paper arguesthat Aristotelian virtue ethics is subject to many objections because the psychology implicit within the eth…Read more
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Ethical issues in human resourcesIn Norman E. Bowie (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Business Ethics, Blackwell. pp. 6--225. 2002.
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82The ethics of business: Moving beyond legalismEthics and Behavior 6 (1). 1996.The economist Milton Friedman argued that business has only one ethical responsibility: Business has a responsibility to employ all available legal means to increase corporate profits owed to stockholders (Friedman, 1993). In this article, I explore why business students find this argument so attractive. I then argue that, as an account of business ethics, Friedman's legalism is both theoretically and practically unsound. I close with some suggestions as to what would constitute a truly ethical …Read more
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4Creative 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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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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65A Defense of a Thomistic Concept of the Just PriceBusiness Ethics Quarterly 22 (3): 501-526. 2012.Since St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the first scholastics to analyze the idea of a “just price,” economists, economic historians and philosophers interested in the philosophical underpinnings of the market have focused on Aquinas’s writings. One group insists that Aquinas defined the just price as the payment needed to cover sellers’ labor and material costs. A second camp vehemently counters that Aquinas’s just price is simply the going market price. We argue that neither of these views is corr…Read more
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41Preliminary definitions and distinctions -- Causes of unintended consequences -- The challenges unintended consequences pose for standard moral frameworks -- Possible ethical remedies.
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13Snow 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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14What Form of Business Regulation is Workable?Business and Professional Ethics Journal 23 (1): 43-63. 2004.
Areas of Specialization
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Philosophy of Action |
Aesthetics |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Asian Philosophy |