Business Ethics: The State of the Art

TLDR

The paper surveys current scholarship in business ethics, illustrating its controversy, intellectual richness, and emerging research traditions, and argues for its relevance to other business disciplines. The authors analyze the separation of business and ethics, corporate agency and responsibility, stakeholder theory, and contemporary issues such as international and environmental business ethics. They conclude by highlighting these research areas and proposing additional questions for future study.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to give an account of some of the current areas of scholarship in business ethics and to suggest how these areas may be relevant for scholars working in other business disciplines. We endeavor to paint a picture of a healthy discipline full of controversy, rich intellectual discussions, and the beginnings of several research traditions. To begin, we examine how it is common practice to think of ‘business’ and ‘ethics’ as separate entities, and suggest how such a ‘separation thesis’ can be used to diagnose problems in a host of business disciplines. We next examine the literature on corporate agency and responsibility that questions whether or not a corporation can be said to be normally accountable, in the same way that individual moral agents can be held accountable, and we look at an emerging research tradition of ‘stakeholder theory’ that cuts across the disciplines of business. We then explore two contemporary issues in business ethics: (1) International Business Ethics; and, (2) Environmental Ethics and Business, and we conclude with suggestions for some additional research questions.