Ethics in Real Estate

ethics." Certainly our industry is bound by the formal constraints of law in national, state, and local jurisdictions. What this volume reminds us, however, is that those laws are only as good as the personal "sea of ethics" in which each of us operates. THE ETHICS OF PROPERTY INVOLVEMENTS Stephen E. Roulac The Roulac Group San Rafael, California and Visiting Professor University of Ulster Ethical considerations are a dominant theme in the management literature. As "Ethics and ethical issues surround our liver, ... ethics has become one of the most rapidly growing areas of management research, with over 800 articles and 1,400 books appearing since 1990" (Schminke, Ambrose, and Miles, 1998). Compared to business and business management,however, the research and writing on real estate in an ethics context is in the very early stages of development. The lack of a developed literature on ethics in real estate is reflected in the response by one highly placed executive to my solicitation for funding to support the publication of this volume: "I didn''t know there were any ethics in real estate!" Fortunately, the Summa Corporation and the Amer­ ican Real Estate Society believe in the importance of ethics in real estate, for their cosponsorship has made possible this special monograph on the subject of Ethics in Real Estate. The support of the Summa Corporation and the American Real Estate Society of this pioneering volume is warmly and appreciatively acknowledged.