Routledge Studies in Business Ethics – serie

Care is a human ability we all need for growing and flourishing. It implies considering the needs and interests of others, and the quality of how we relate to each other is often defined by care. While the value of care in private life is widely recognized, its role in the public sphere is contested and subject to political debates. In work organizations, instrumentality frequently overrides considerations for colleagues’ and co-workers’ well-being, while relationships are often sacrificed in the service of performance and meeting organizational targets.The questions this volume attempts to address concerns the organizational conditions that make care flourish and how a caring organization functions in practice. Specifically, we examine what it means to care for each other and what enhances caring behaviours in organizations. The volume ultimately focuses on how caring relations can contribute to making organizations better places. In this perspective, care involves the recognition of, and the limitations of, work as a key aspect of personal and social identity. Because care exceeds the sphere of individual intimacy, the book will also centre on the necessity for building caring institutions through a political process that considers the needs, contributions, and prospects of many different actors.This book aims to contribute to academic discussions on care in organizations, care work, business and organizational ethics, diversity, caring leadership, well-being in organizations, and research ethics. Managers, consultants, policy-makers, and students will find reflections about the goodness of care in organizations, and guidance about the ethical and practical difficulties of pursuing the project of building caring organizations.

21st century Western neoliberalism has seen the transformation of self-interest from an economic imperative to a centrally constitutive part of dominant modes of subjective existence. Against this celebration of competitive individualism, Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy stands as a haunting reminder of an ethics that passively disturbs the self from its egoistic slumber, awakening it to the incessant demands of the other. Ethics stands as an anxious affective state of being where one is held to account by others, each one demanding care, attention and respect. Focussing on business activities and organizations, this book explores how this ethical demand of being for the other becomes translated, in a necessarily impure way, into political action, contestation and resistance. Such a response to ethics invokes a disturbance of organizational order, including an order that might itself be labelled ‘ethical’. On these grounds, the book offers an explication of an ethics for organizations which disturbs the selfishness of neoliberal morality, and can inform a democratic politics rested on a genuine concern for the other and for justice.Disturbing Business Ethics: Emmanuel Levinas and the Politics of Organization offers an unconventional and enlightening approach to ethical thinking and practice in politics and organisations, and will be of interest to students of business, management, leadership, political science and organizational theory.

Executives’ morality and ethics became major research topics following recent business scandals, but the research missed a major explanation of executives’ immorality: career advancement by "jumping" between firms that causes ignorance of job-pertinent tacit local knowledge, tempting "jumpers" to covertly conceal this ignorance. Generating distrust and ignorance cycles and mismanagement, this choice bars performance-based career advancement and encourages immoral careerism, advancing by immoral subterfuges. Such careerism is a known managerial malady, but explaining its emergence proved challenging as managerial ignorance is covertly concealed as a dark secret on organizations’ dark side by conspiracies of silence. Managerially educated and experienced, Dr. Shapira achieved a breakthrough by a 5-year semi-native anthropological study of five "jumper"-managed automatic processing plants and their parent firms. This book untangles common ignorance and immoral careerism, concealed as dark secrets by executives who "rode" on the successes of mid-level "jumpers" who high-morally risked their authority and power by admitting ignorance and trustfully learned local tacit knowledge. The opposite choice tendencies accorded power, authority, and status rankings, which made practicing immorality easier the higher one’s position, suggesting that the common "jumping" between managerial careers nurtures immoral executives similar to those exposed in the recent business scandals.

The main theme of this book is that, within contemporary capitalist societies a materialist outlook informed by science has triumphed creating the lack of a spiritual dimension to give meaning and purpose to the activities that are necessary for a capitalist society to function effectively. Capitalist societies are in trouble and need to be restructured to provide for the material needs of all the people who work within the system, not just the one percent, but because of the lack of a spiritual connection with each other and with nature this is not likely to happen. It has been said that society and the organizations within treat one another as objects to be manipulated in the interests of promoting economic growth and treat nature as an object to be exploited for the same purpose. This way of treating each other, and nature, is consistent with the way a capitalist system has worked in the past and was supposed to enable it to function efficiently to provide a fulfilling and enriched life for all its adherents through growth of the economy. However, as capitalist societies have become dysfunctional they will need a different kind of orientation to continue in existence. Restructuring Capitalism: Materialism and Spiritualism in Business argues that what is needed is a new sense of a spiritualization of the self and its relation to others and to the establishment of a spiritual connection with nature in order for capitalism to be restructured to work for everyone and for the society as a whole.

The 21st century is the age of "neo-liberalism" – a time when the free market is spreading to all areas of economic, political and social life. Yet how is this changing our individual and collective ethics? Is capitalism also becoming our new morality? From the growing popular demand for corporate social responsibility to personal desire for "work-life balance" it would appear that non-market ideals are not only surviving but also thriving. Why then does it seem that capitalism remains as strong as ever?The Ethics of Neoliberalism boldly proposes that neoliberalism strategically co-opts traditional ethics to ideologically and structurally strengthen capitalism. It produces "the ethical capitalist subject" who is personally responsible for making their society, workplace and even their lives "more ethical" in the face of an immoral but seemingly permanent free market.Rather than altering our morality, neoliberalism "individualizes" ethics, making us personally responsible for dealing with and resolving its moral failings. In doing so, individuals end up perpetuating the very market system that they morally oppose and feel powerless to ultimately change. This analysis reveals the complex and paradoxical way capitalism is currently shaping us as "ethical subjects". People are increasingly asked to ethically "save" capitalism both collectively and personally. This can range from the "moral responsibility" to politically accept austerity following the financial crisis to the willingness of employees to sacrifice their time and energy to make their neoliberal organizations more "humane" to the efforts by individuals to contribute to their family and communities despite the pressures of a franetic global business environment. Neoliberalism, thus, uses our ethics against us, relying on our "good nature" and sense of personal responsibility to reduce its human cost in practice. Ironically

21st century Western neoliberalism has seen the transformation of self-interest from an economic imperative to a centrally constitutive part of dominant modes of subjective existence. Against this celebration of competitive individualism, Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy stands as a haunting reminder of an ethics that passively disturbs the self from its egoistic slumber, awakening it to the incessant demands of the other. Ethics stands as an anxious affective state of being where one is held to account by others, each one demanding care, attention and respect. Focussing on business activities and organizations, this book explores how this ethical demand of being for the other becomes translated, in a necessarily impure way, into political action, contestation and resistance. Such a response to ethics invokes a disturbance of organizational order, including an order that might itself be labelled ‘ethical’. On these grounds, the book offers an explication of an ethics for organizations which disturbs the selfishness of neoliberal morality, and can inform a democratic politics rested on a genuine concern for the other and for justice.Disturbing Business Ethics: Emmanuel Levinas and the Politics of Organization offers an unconventional and enlightening approach to ethical thinking and practice in politics and organisations, and will be of interest to students of business, management, leadership, political science and organizational theory.

Amidst the exponentially growing interest in "work as a calling," contemporary discussions have taken an individualistic turn away from the earlier prosocial character that once marked this orientation to work. Now, discussions about "work as a calling" mostly prioritize personal fulfilment via the pursuit of deeply "meaningful work." Excessive focus has been placed on the experience of meaningful work in ways that are detached from the genuinely good workplace ends that allow for such a meaningful experience to ensue. This book provides a novel paradigm for reimagining the idea of "work as a calling," which serves as a corrective that better supports the individuals’ search for meaning and their contribution to the common good, arguing that the two go hand in hand, and so they cannot be separated. Thus, the key idea captured herein is not simply that scholars have misunderstood the very notion of "work as a calling" by implying that it is essentially just synonymous with meaningful work, but, even more importantly, the point is that scholars and laypersons alike often fail to realize how true meaning ensues as a result of a genuine concern for contributing to human flourishing and the common good through one’s work.Providing a new perspective on "work as a calling" by examining the issue from the perspective of morality rather than self-actualization, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of business ethics, management, leadership, and organizational studies.

Amidst the exponentially growing interest in "work as a calling," contemporary discussions have taken an individualistic turn away from the earlier prosocial character that once marked this orientation to work. Now, discussions about "work as a calling" mostly prioritize personal fulfilment via the pursuit of deeply "meaningful work." Excessive focus has been placed on the experience of meaningful work in ways that are detached from the genuinely good workplace ends that allow for such a meaningful experience to ensue. This book provides a novel paradigm for reimagining the idea of "work as a calling," which serves as a corrective that better supports the individuals’ search for meaning and their contribution to the common good, arguing that the two go hand in hand, and so they cannot be separated. Thus, the key idea captured herein is not simply that scholars have misunderstood the very notion of "work as a calling" by implying that it is essentially just synonymous with meaningful work, but, even more importantly, the point is that scholars and laypersons alike often fail to realize how true meaning ensues as a result of a genuine concern for contributing to human flourishing and the common good through one’s work.Providing a new perspective on "work as a calling" by examining the issue from the perspective of morality rather than self-actualization, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of business ethics, management, leadership, and organizational studies.

Over the last few decades, emerging markets have increased their share in world GDP and have come to play a prominent and growing role in global business. Their period of impressive growth was triggered by major global advances such as economic liberalization and governance reforms and deregulation. As governments and policy makers have permitted global competition from the more advanced, developed world, the prospect of millions of consumers in developing countries not only encourages locals to start businesses, but also appeals to multinational enterprises overseas. The growing presence of emerging markets on the world stage has not been left unnoticed and many investors have contributed significant amounts of capital with the hope of receiving major financial gains. In this context, emerging markets are particularly facing sustainability challenges due to their fast growing pace and fuzzy or inexistent sustainability regulations. Corporate Social Responsibility in Emerging Economies represents a realistic critical overview of the state of affairs of CSR in the context of an emerging economy. It is an accessible and comprehensive diagnostic point of reference for the academic world as well as for policy makers. The topic of CSR is highly relevant for the business world and a challenging subject for the theory and literature. This is a unique book that offers new empirical insights for policy makers and scholars of the fields of CSR, Business Ethics, Organizational Studies and related disciplines

The use of non-secular, religious, concepts in contemporary managerial discourse to legitimise leadership, organisation and work has been undertheorised. Concepts such as organisational soul, Spiritual Leadership, a wider deification (and demonisation) of leaders, and the mantra of individual freedom each evoke long religio-historical roots. The deployment of such terms in the present to (re)enrol people into the service of capitalism speaks both to high levels of religious belief worldwide and, more specifically, to a history of religion intersecting with public life in the US—a context pivotal in the development and dissemination of managerialism and wider neoliberal discourse.Organised around the concepts of Gods, Devils, Soul and the Individual this book will show how these concepts are being employed in current managerial, leadership and organisation discourses, critically examine the religio-historical and philosophical roots of such, and demonstrate how the religio-historical and religio-philosophical can be brought into the lexicon of critical organisational scholarship to provide a language to engage with the non-secular legitimation of capitalism and its institutions.In so doing, this book is a timely addition to organisation and management theory. It comes at a time that is witnessing a wider ‘theological turn’ in continental philosophy, mounting calls within organisation studies to ‘take religion seriously’, and an ongoing legitimation crisis of neoliberalism, one that is raising pivotal questions concerning how neoliberalism endures despite the deprivations and harms it occasions. This book is intended to be engaging and erudite, drawing upon a trans-disciplinary combination of popular and academic management texts, contemporary and classical philosophy, literature and religio-historical sources foundational in the construction of the Western subject.

The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 concentrated attention on the morality of banking and financial activities. Just as mainstream businesses became increasingly defined by their financial performance, banks, it seemed, got themselves – and everyone else – into trouble through an over-emphasis on themselves as commercial enterprises that need pay little attention to traditional banking virtues or ethics. While the GFC had many causes, criticism was legitimately levelled at banks over the ethics of mortgage creation, excessive securitisation, executive remuneration, and high-pressure customer sales tactics, amongst other things. These criticisms mirror those that have been levelled at the business more generally, particular in the last decade, although the backdrop provided by the GFC is more dramatic, and the outcomes of supposed wrongdoing more severe.This book focuses on business ethics after the GFC; not on the crisis itself, but how we should respond to it. The GFC has focused minds on the proper role of ethics in the understanding and conduct of business activity, but it is essential to look beyond the crisis to address the deeper challenges that it highlights.The aim of this volume is to present examples of the latest philosophically-informed thinking across a range of ethical issues that relate to business activity, using the banks and the GFC – the consequences of which continue to reverberate – as a point of departure. The book will be of great value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in business, ethics in general, and business ethics in particular.

This book highlights the interconnectedness of integrity with philosophical history, leadership, managerial decision-making, and organizational effectiveness in a wide variety of contexts (e.g., time theft in organizations and family business). Well-known researchers in business ethics from all around the world reframe the literature on integrity in business and management and develop updated and more comprehensive models of integrity. Integrity in Business and Management connects integrity to both ancient thought and the modern philosophy of pragmatism, but also explains how contemporary societal trends may shape the way we think about integrity. The final chapter warns against oversocialized conceptualizations of integrity and argues for a clear differentiation between personal integrity and moral integrity. Aimed at researchers and academics in the fields of business ethics and organizational leadership, Integrity in Business and Management explicates and critiques prior models of managerial integrity in a wide variety of disciplines, covering economics, moral philosophy, business ethics, organizational behavior, sociology, history, and psychology and offers a helpful set of readings in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses of business ethics, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and leadership to stimulate discussions about personal integrity, moral integrity, and organizational leadership.

This book examines the role that the traditional understanding of science plays in how we understand the capitalistic system and how it informs business and business school education. Science serves many purposes in business organizations; it is much more than just a method to gain knowledge about business problems. It acculturates students to a certain way of thinking about the world and provides a rationale for the things business does and a justification for its purposes in society. It then utilizes the philosophy of Classical American Pragmatism to view science in a different manner, reconceptualizing the multiple environments in which business functions. Author Rogene Buchholz traces the implications of this view for our understanding of the corporation, how science is used in business organizations, the recent financial crisis, and finally what it means for management and management education. No other book examines capitalism and the business system from this unique and timely perspective.

During the 21st century organizations will undergo a level of radical and global change that has rarely been seen before. This transformation will come as a result of the environmental, social and economic challenges that now confront organisations in all their activities. But are our understandings and theories of change up to the task of meeting these challenges? Will we be able to develop sustaining visions of how organizations might contribute to the long-term viability of our interdependent global communities? Organizational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory offers some innovative answers to the big questions involved in organizational sustainability and the radical changes that organizations will need to undergo as we move into the third millennium. This new approach comes from the emerging field of integral metatheory. Edwards shows how a "Big Picture" view of organisational transformation can contribute to our understanding of, and search for, organisational sustainability. There are four key themes to the book: i) the need for integrative metatheories for organisational change; ii) the development of a general research method for building metatheory; iii) the description of an integral metatheory for organisational sustainability; and iv) the discussion of the implications of this metatheory for organisational change and social policy regarding sustainability. This book brings a unique and important orienting perspective to these issues.

As the first book in the field of leadership studies to approach sustainability as a multi-faceted leadership challenge, Leadership for Environmental Sustainability will help to set the terms of the discussion on this topic among students, scholars, and practitioners of leadership for years to come. It explores the connection between leadership and sustainability from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including sociology, history, psychology, business, literature, communication, and the arts. With short chapters edited for readability, the book is aimed at scholars, practitioners, students, and educated lay readers interested in cutting-edge research and thinking on this topic.

As the first book in the field of leadership studies to approach sustainability as a multi-faceted leadership challenge, Leadership for Environmental Sustainability will help to set the terms of the discussion on this topic among students, scholars, and practitioners of leadership for years to come. It explores the connection between leadership and sustainability from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including sociology, history, psychology, business, literature, communication, and the arts. With short chapters edited for readability, the book is aimed at scholars, practitioners, students, and educated lay readers interested in cutting-edge research and thinking on this topic.

This book provides insight into the potential for the market to protect and improve labour standards and working conditions in global apparel supply chains. It examines the possibilities and limitations of market approaches to securing social compliance in global manufacturing industries. It does so by tracing the historic origins of social labelling both in trade union and consumer constituencies, considering industry and consumer perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of social labelling, comparing efforts to develop and implement labelling initiatives in various countries, and locating social labelling within contemporary debates and controversies about the implications of globalization for workers worldwide. Scholars and students of globalisation, development, corporate social responsibility, human geography, labour and industrial relations, business ethics, consumer behaviour and fashion will find its contents of relevance. CSR practitioners in the clothing and other industries will also find this useful in developing policy with respect to supply chain assurance.

Despite its recent popularity in literature, theory, and practice, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) remains a vague concept that struggles to define itself beyond the confines of corporate philanthropy or sustainability. In some circles, it is a response to the present and anticipated climate change challenges, while in others it focuses on fair trade, corporate governance, and responsible investment. What then is CSR, and how do we understand its purpose? In Corporate Social Responsibility, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, authors Kenneth Amaeshi and Paul Nnodim consider the governance of corporate externalities (positive and negative impacts of firms on society and the environment) as the main thrust of the CSR discourse – a field that hitherto only the state has regulated, with sometimes coercive actions.This book contributes to the theorization of CSR by presenting the meaning of CSR in a clear and distinct manner, giving the ongoing CSR debate a new direction anchored on a firm economic philosophy. It reinforces the view of firms as social institutions as well as economic actors, establishing CSR as a form of justice rather than philanthropy. Articulating CSR as private governance of corporate externalities, for the first time, this book provides researchers with a new paradigm to translate knowledge into action and offers reflective managers an alternative framework in which to explore their corporate strategies and decisions.

During the 21st century organizations will undergo a level of radical and global change that has rarely been seen before. This transformation will come as a result of the environmental, social and economic challenges that now confront organisations in all their activities. But are our understandings and theories of change up to the task of meeting these challenges? Will we be able to develop sustaining visions of how organizations might contribute to the long-term viability of our interdependent global communities? Organizational Transformation for Sustainability: An Integral Metatheory offers some innovative answers to the big questions involved in organizational sustainability and the radical changes that organizations will need to undergo as we move into the third millennium. This new approach comes from the emerging field of integral metatheory. Edwards shows how a "Big Picture" view of organisational transformation can contribute to our understanding of, and search for, organisational sustainability. There are four key themes to the book: i) the need for integrative metatheories for organisational change; ii) the development of a general research method for building metatheory; iii) the description of an integral metatheory for organisational sustainability; and iv) the discussion of the implications of this metatheory for organisational change and social policy regarding sustainability. This book brings a unique and important orienting perspective to these issues.

Given the world's current financial climate, Rethinking Capitalism couldn't come at a better time. With the government bailing out and taking over banks and other financial institutions, many are wondering what kind of capitalism we will end up with. Every day questions arise about whether the government should more actively regulate these institutions, and many are angered by the compensation and severance packages provided to the managers of failed institutions. What are our alternatives?Rethinking Capitalism questions the assumptions of a capitalist society, offers a new way to understand capitalism, and prescribes a different role for management. Using classical American pragmatism, Professor Emeritus of Business Ethics Rogene Buchholz analyzes the history of capitalistic thought and proposes that we recast management as a profession akin to law or medicine--with a defined code of ethics, oriented toward the public good as well as profit and maximization of shareholder wealth. Buchholz challenges the way we understand capitalism with its emphasis on the creation of economic wealth and growth to the exclusion of all else, and champion a new approach to the creation of a more sustainable and just functioning of the market system, corporate organization, and governance.

Corporate social responsibility has become a heavily discussed topic in business ethics. Identifying some generally accepted moral principles as a basis for discussion, Individuals, Groups, and Business Ethics examines ethical dimensions of our relationships with families, friends and workmates, the extent to which we have obligations as members of teams and communities, and how far ethics may ground our commitments to organisations and countries. It offers an innovative analysis that differentiates amongst our genuine ethical obligations to individuals, counterfeit obligations to identity groups, and complex role-based obligations in organised groups. It suggests that often individuals need intuitive moral judgment developed by experience, reflection and dialogue to identify the individual obligations that emerge for them in complex group situations. These situations include some where people have to discern what their organisations’ corporate social responsibilities imply for them as individuals, and other situations where individuals have to deal with conflicts amongst their obligations or with efforts by other people to exploit them. This book gives an integrated, analytical account of how our obligations are grounded, provides a major theoretical case study of such ethical processes in action, and then considers some extended implications.

Given the recent financial meltdown and continuing economic problems the country and the world are facing, Rethinking Capitalism is particularly relevant. With the government having bailed out banks and other financial institutions as well as automobile companies, and anger over the compensation and severance packages provided to the managers of failed institutions in light of growing inequalities and continued high unemployment in American society, many are wondering if self-interest driven free-market capitalism is still viable. While there is some support for more active government regulation of financial and other institutions, there is also significant opposition to such an approach as new political movements gain strength. Are there other alternatives to create a more responsible capitalism that serves the entire society?Rethinking Capitalism questions the individualistic assumptions of a capitalist society and offers a new way to understand capitalism that entails a new role for business based on community and responsibility. Using classical American Pragmatism as a philosophical framework for capitalism, Professor Buchholz analyzes the history of capitalistic thought and proposes that we recast management as a profession akin to law and medicine oriented toward serving the public rather than just maximization of shareholder wealth. Buchholz challenges the way we understand capitalism with its emphasis on the creation of economic wealth and growth to the exclusion of other important goals and champions a new approach to the creation of a more sustainable and responsible functioning of the capitalistic system, the corporate organization, and its management.

There is an urgent need to understand how private and public organisations can play a role in promoting human values such as fairness, dignity, respect and care. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Against this backdrop, organisations are being urged to make their contribution to the common good, take account of the interests of multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to complex challenges which transcend traditional organisational and state boundaries. Ethics, Meaningfulness, and Mutuality poses critical questions related to organisational design by challenging limits to current thinking, such as the neglect by political philosophers of markets, firms and stakeholders, or by organisational theorists of business ethics. In so doing, the book advances our understanding of the theory and practice of ethical organising. Specifically, meaningfulness and mutuality will be used to yield values and principles for a philosophy of ethical organising which includes an account of human values in morally desirable collective action, and examines the relationship of collective action to the contested concept of shared value creation. Within a philosophy of ethical organising, mutuality permits an examination of the unavoidable relational nature of collective action, whereas meaningfulness addresses fundamental human concerns for significance and leading a life we have reason to value. By addressing our status as relational beings with human needs for meaning, a philosophy of ethical organising brings critical thinking to the creation of morally informed organisational practices which are not only instrumentally beneficial for addressing wicked problems, but are normatively desirable for human flourishing.

Care is a human ability we all need for growing and flourishing. It implies considering the needs and interests of others, and the quality of how we relate to each other is often defined by care. While the value of care in private life is widely recognized, its role in the public sphere is contested and subject to political debates. In work organizations, instrumentality frequently overrides considerations for colleagues’ and co-workers’ well-being, while relationships are often sacrificed in the service of performance and meeting organizational targets.The questions this volume attempts to address concerns the organizational conditions that make care flourish and how a caring organization functions in practice. Specifically, we examine what it means to care for each other and what enhances caring behaviours in organizations. The volume ultimately focuses on how caring relations can contribute to making organizations better places. In this perspective, care involves the recognition of, and the limitations of, work as a key aspect of personal and social identity. Because care exceeds the sphere of individual intimacy, the book will also centre on the necessity for building caring institutions through a political process that considers the needs, contributions, and prospects of many different actors.This book aims to contribute to academic discussions on care in organizations, care work, business and organizational ethics, diversity, caring leadership, well-being in organizations, and research ethics. Managers, consultants, policy-makers, and students will find reflections about the goodness of care in organizations, and guidance about the ethical and practical difficulties of pursuing the project of building caring organizations.

In 1973, Daniel Bell argued that corporations in post-industrial societies increasingly needed to behave in accord with widely accepted social norms, particularly in terms of ethical behavior and social responsibility. Yet widespread criticism of business behavior was not an invention of the 1960s and 70s or a product of changing commercial norms. The key feature historically has been business scandal. Understandings of how the field of business ethics has emerged are undeveloped, however.This book is the first attempt to explain the conditions which saw a focus develop on business ethics especially in the 1960s and 70s, and how the broader field developed to encompass related notions such as corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, ethical leadership, sustainable business and responsible management education.The Rise of Business Ethics provides an introduction and analysis of the key developments in contemporary business ethics by examining them in terms of their diachronic development – the key thinkers, the key issues, the key institutions and how they each contributed to contemporary understandings of business ethics, governance and practice. Addressing the topic from a European as well as North American perspective, The Rise of Business Ethics will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of business ethics, business and society, business history, organization studies and political economy.

There is an urgent need to understand how private and public organisations can play a role in promoting human values such as fairness, dignity, respect and care. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Against this backdrop, organisations are being urged to make their contribution to the common good, take account of the interests of multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to complex challenges which transcend traditional organisational and state boundaries. Ethics, Meaningfulness, and Mutuality poses critical questions related to organisational design by challenging limits to current thinking, such as the neglect by political philosophers of markets, firms and stakeholders, or by organisational theorists of business ethics. In so doing, the book advances our understanding of the theory and practice of ethical organising. Specifically, meaningfulness and mutuality will be used to yield values and principles for a philosophy of ethical organising which includes an account of human values in morally desirable collective action, and examines the relationship of collective action to the contested concept of shared value creation. Within a philosophy of ethical organising, mutuality permits an examination of the unavoidable relational nature of collective action, whereas meaningfulness addresses fundamental human concerns for significance and leading a life we have reason to value. By addressing our status as relational beings with human needs for meaning, a philosophy of ethical organising brings critical thinking to the creation of morally informed organisational practices which are not only instrumentally beneficial for addressing wicked problems, but are normatively desirable for human flourishing.

This book presents the philosophical assumptions of situation ethics to show the practice of morality management that follows from them. This research comprises theoretical and applied aspects: It is an investigation into metaethics that encompasses strategic and quality management problems. With the example of situation ethics, the book illustrates the role of philosophical investigations and solutions in management theory and practice. It will be of interest to researchers, academics and advanced students in the fields of business and management studies, ethics, quality management and philosophy. Furthermore, this book may be useful for senior executives and politicians charged with negotiating complicated moral quandaries and overseeing the implementation of ethical policies in their organisations and communities.

Moral pragmatism has been largely ignored in Business Ethics, despite its natural attraction and the fact that it is prominent in philosophy and socio-economic theories. The main premise of the book is that the complexity of today’s business world does not permit a grand ethical theory, notwithstanding the different attempts made by scientists. Moral pragmatism is the ‘go-to’ approach where the ethical decision-making of managers varies dependent on different circumstances but it always integrates moral considerations. Ethical decision-making is no longer based simply on known rules, but entails the constant dynamic interaction of circumstances, the development of new rules, managers’ past experiences, their knowledge concerning ethics, and skills of moral reasoning.This book interweaves the postmodern approach to management studies and, based on its innovative research, reintroduces moral pragmatism in Business Ethics. The combination of decision-making theories, philosophy and postmodernism paves the way for future novel research in Business Ethics, making it an excellent resource for researchers, academics, and advanced students in the field of Business Ethics. Practitioners, on the other hand, will benefit by improving their skills in ethical decision-making and leadership.

Moral pragmatism has been largely ignored in Business Ethics, despite its natural attraction and the fact that it is prominent in philosophy and socio-economic theories. The main premise of the book is that the complexity of today’s business world does not permit a grand ethical theory, notwithstanding the different attempts made by scientists. Moral pragmatism is the ‘go-to’ approach where the ethical decision-making of managers varies dependent on different circumstances but it always integrates moral considerations. Ethical decision-making is no longer based simply on known rules, but entails the constant dynamic interaction of circumstances, the development of new rules, managers’ past experiences, their knowledge concerning ethics, and skills of moral reasoning.This book interweaves the postmodern approach to management studies and, based on its innovative research, reintroduces moral pragmatism in Business Ethics. The combination of decision-making theories, philosophy and postmodernism paves the way for future novel research in Business Ethics, making it an excellent resource for researchers, academics, and advanced students in the field of Business Ethics. Practitioners, on the other hand, will benefit by improving their skills in ethical decision-making and leadership.