Teaching Business Ethics: A ‘Classificationist’ Approach

IF 4.8 Q1 Economics, Econometrics and Finance
W. Block, Paul Cwik
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All too often, despite even having a course in business ethics, students emerge believing that commerce is either vaguely disreputable, or even that it is totally dishonest per se and exploitative. No graduate school from anthropology to zoology has to suffer any similar ignominy. Business ethics is seen by many graduate schools of commerce or management as a luxury, which can be jettisoned in favour of other, and sometimes more fashionable, courses. When a business ethics course is offered, the content of the course pays very little attention to the essential ethic of business. Instead, the focus of many business ethics courses is the ethical dilemmas that arise in a business setting. There is a fundamental difference between the ethics of a market and behaving ethically in a business. A market is a process by which individuals interact with one another. Thus, the former examines the actions, interactions and consequences of those actions between individuals as a system, while the later examines the dilemma before an individual and the morality of the choices to be made. There are 38 unique business ethics titles under the top six textbook publishing companies, 22 of which were published in 2005 or later. (Appendix I lists the publishers and the respective textbooks.) Upon reviewing these textbooks in business ethics, we see a tremendous number of chapters that address corporate social responsibility, the collective responsibility of an organization, how the corporation should treat its employees and personal decision making. (Of the 38 titles, most followed a very similar format, while seven followed the casebook format.) Typically, there is an initial chapter introducing the student to business ethics. Newton & Ford (2006), for example, entitle their first chapter ‘Is Capitalism the Best Route to Human Happiness?’. It then contrasts readings from Adam Smith and Karl Marx, leaving the student with the false impression that philosophical arguments supporting the ethics of the market have not progressed in the past 225 years. Throughout the rest of Newton & Ford (2006), the issue is dropped and the focus shifts to the modern issues that address ethics of business decisions, like corporate responsibility, etc. The exclusion from the discussion of the ethics of business is absolutely typical among these textbooks. Furthermore, in other textbooks (e.g. see Chapter 3 in DesJardins 2006), utilitarianism and private property rights are castigated as Classical Theory that do not withstand modern stakeholder criticisms. Finally, there are the sections of the various textbooks that pit the individual against the corporation. The individual finds himself in conflict with his employer because the company wants him to deviate from his personal code of ethics. 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引用次数: 22

Abstract

It is imperative that business ethics be taught at all MBA programmes, and even at the undergraduate level. While no graduate of law, dentistry, veterinary, medicine, engineering, social work or other professional schools can take a degree in any of these respective subjects without being made aware of the case for the propriety and general beneficence of their calling, the same, unfortunately, cannot be said in the case of business schools. In the latter case, all too often, students are allowed to graduate without ever once being confronted with the argument that business too, and even pre-eminently so, makes an important contribution to society, and is a worthwhile pursuit. All too often, despite even having a course in business ethics, students emerge believing that commerce is either vaguely disreputable, or even that it is totally dishonest per se and exploitative. No graduate school from anthropology to zoology has to suffer any similar ignominy. Business ethics is seen by many graduate schools of commerce or management as a luxury, which can be jettisoned in favour of other, and sometimes more fashionable, courses. When a business ethics course is offered, the content of the course pays very little attention to the essential ethic of business. Instead, the focus of many business ethics courses is the ethical dilemmas that arise in a business setting. There is a fundamental difference between the ethics of a market and behaving ethically in a business. A market is a process by which individuals interact with one another. Thus, the former examines the actions, interactions and consequences of those actions between individuals as a system, while the later examines the dilemma before an individual and the morality of the choices to be made. There are 38 unique business ethics titles under the top six textbook publishing companies, 22 of which were published in 2005 or later. (Appendix I lists the publishers and the respective textbooks.) Upon reviewing these textbooks in business ethics, we see a tremendous number of chapters that address corporate social responsibility, the collective responsibility of an organization, how the corporation should treat its employees and personal decision making. (Of the 38 titles, most followed a very similar format, while seven followed the casebook format.) Typically, there is an initial chapter introducing the student to business ethics. Newton & Ford (2006), for example, entitle their first chapter ‘Is Capitalism the Best Route to Human Happiness?’. It then contrasts readings from Adam Smith and Karl Marx, leaving the student with the false impression that philosophical arguments supporting the ethics of the market have not progressed in the past 225 years. Throughout the rest of Newton & Ford (2006), the issue is dropped and the focus shifts to the modern issues that address ethics of business decisions, like corporate responsibility, etc. The exclusion from the discussion of the ethics of business is absolutely typical among these textbooks. Furthermore, in other textbooks (e.g. see Chapter 3 in DesJardins 2006), utilitarianism and private property rights are castigated as Classical Theory that do not withstand modern stakeholder criticisms. Finally, there are the sections of the various textbooks that pit the individual against the corporation. The individual finds himself in conflict with his employer because the company wants him to deviate from his personal code of ethics. For example, a person who is trying to sell a product must lie and say that it is a great product, even though he does not like it himself.The unfortunate aspect of focusing so much on ethics in a business situation is that it gives scant attention to the underlying morality of voluntary exchange. In short, business ethics classes rarely mention the ethics of business – the ethics of commerce. When the courses do address the topic of whether business is ethical, business is usually cast in a negative light. How can a society’s commerce function at all, let alone in a meaningful and efficient manner, if its practitioners are apologetic about their professions, or even ashamed of them? There is a difficulty in advocating what might be considered by some as ‘boosterism’ for business and free enterprise and this must be faced right at the outset: How can this difficulty be reconciled with academic freedom? After all, there are, no doubt, many professors – both within business schools and outside of them – who see business in precisely this light: a dubious undertaking at best and an exploitative one at worst. It is at this point that the economist can contribute to the dialogue. The economist looks at the economy from both the micro-level and the macro-level. At the micro-level, the economist examines the relationship of trade among individuals and, at the macro-level, the economist takes a systemic perspective. From these vantage points, the economist is able to draw conclusions about the ethicalness of commerce. Unfortunately, not all economists agree; thus, an answer is sought by the ‘classificationist’ approach.
商业伦理教学:一种“分类主义”方法
在所有MBA课程中,甚至在本科阶段,都必须教授商业道德。虽然法律、牙科、兽医、医学、工程、社会工作或其他专业学校的毕业生在没有意识到其职业的适当性和总体慈善性的情况下,无法获得这些学科的学位,但不幸的是,商学院的情况并非如此。在后一种情况下,学生们在毕业时往往没有听到过这样的观点:商业也对社会做出了重要贡献,甚至是极其重要的贡献,是一项值得追求的事业。尽管有一门商业道德课程,但学生们往往认为,商业要么是模糊的不光彩,要么是完全不诚实的、剥削性的。从人类学到动物学,任何研究生院都不会遭受类似的耻辱。商业伦理被许多商学或管理学研究生院视为一种奢侈品,可以抛弃它,转而选择其他(有时是更时髦的)课程。在开设商业伦理课程时,课程内容很少关注商业的本质伦理。相反,许多商业伦理课程的重点是在商业环境中出现的道德困境。市场道德与企业道德行为之间有着根本的区别。市场是个体之间相互作用的过程。因此,前者研究个体之间作为一个系统的行为、相互作用和这些行为的后果,而后者研究个体面临的困境和所做选择的道德性。排名前6位的教科书出版公司旗下有38种独特的企业伦理书籍,其中22种是2005年以后出版的。(附录一列出了出版商和各自的教科书。)在回顾这些商业道德教科书时,我们看到大量的章节讨论了企业的社会责任、组织的集体责任、公司应该如何对待员工和个人决策。(在这38本书中,大多数采用了非常相似的格式,而7本采用了案例书的格式。)一般来说,第一章是向学生介绍商业道德。例如,Newton和Ford(2006)将第一章命名为“资本主义是通往人类幸福的最佳途径吗?”然后,它将亚当•斯密(Adam Smith)和卡尔•马克思(Karl Marx)的解读进行了对比,给学生留下了一种错误的印象,即支持市场伦理的哲学论点在过去225年里没有取得进展。在Newton & Ford(2006)的其余部分中,这个问题被放弃,焦点转移到解决商业决策道德的现代问题,如企业责任等。在这些教科书中,将商业伦理排除在外的做法绝对是典型的。此外,在其他教科书中(例如,参见DesJardins 2006年的第3章),功利主义和私有产权被批评为经不起现代利益相关者批评的经典理论。最后,在不同的教科书中,有些章节将个人与公司对立起来。个人发现自己与雇主发生冲突,因为公司希望他偏离自己的个人道德准则。例如,一个想要推销产品的人必须撒谎,说这是一个伟大的产品,即使他自己并不喜欢它。在商业环境中过多关注道德的一个不幸方面是,它很少关注自愿交换的潜在道德。简而言之,商业伦理课很少提到商业伦理——商业伦理。当这些课程确实涉及到商业是否道德的话题时,商业通常被赋予了负面的色彩。如果从业人员对自己的职业感到抱歉,甚至为自己的职业感到羞耻,那么一个社会的商业怎么可能发挥作用,更不用说以有意义和有效的方式发挥作用了?提倡可能被一些人认为是商业和自由企业的“助推器”,这是一个困难,必须从一开始就面对:这种困难如何与学术自由相协调?毕竟,毫无疑问,有许多教授——无论是商学院内部还是商学院外部——都是这样看待商业的:往好了说,这是一项可疑的事业,往坏了说,这是一项剥削性的事业。正是在这一点上,经济学家可以为对话做出贡献。经济学家从微观和宏观两个层面来观察经济。在微观层面上,经济学家考察个人之间的贸易关系,在宏观层面上,经济学家采取系统的观点。 从这些有利条件出发,经济学家能够得出关于商业道德的结论。不幸的是,并非所有经济学家都同意这一观点;因此,“分类主义”方法寻求答案。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.90
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: -To offer rigorous and informed analysis of ethical issues and perspectives relevant to organizations and their relationships with society -To promote scholarly research and advance knowledge in relation to business ethics and corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship by providing cutting edge theoretical and empirical analysis of salient issues and developments -To be responsive to changing concerns and emerging issues in the business ethics and business and society sphere, and to seek to reflect these in the balance of contributions -To be the publication outlet of choice for all types of original research relating to business ethics and business-society relationships. Original articles are welcomed. Each issue will normally contain several major articles, and there will be an occasional FOCUS section which will contain articles on an issue of particular importance and topicality. Other regular features will include editorial interviews, book reviews, comments and responses to published articles, research notes and case studies. Business Ethics: A European Review is well established as an academic research journal which is at the same time readable, user-friendly and authoritative. It publishes both fully refereed scholarly papers and special contributions such as speeches and reviews. The range of contributions reflects the variety and scope of ethical issues faced by business and other organisations world-wide, and at the same time seeks to address the interests and concerns of the journals readership.
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