The Ruffin Series in Business Ethics – serie

This latest volume in the acclaimed Ruffin Series in Business Ethics brings together the contributions to the annual Ruffin Lecture series, in which some of the leading scholars in business ethics addressed the question: Can business, and business education, be considered one of the humanities, or is it in a class by itself? At a time when business is coming under attack for its apparent transgressions, this book iluminates the special values that inhere in the business world. Arguing all sides of the issue, the distinguished contributors include Richard DeGeorge, Ronald Green, Thomas Dunfee, Robert Solomon, Edwin Hartman, Peter French, Patricia Werhane, Clarence Walton, W. Michael Hoffman, David Fedo, Kenneth Andrews, Joanne Ciulla, Manuel Velasquez, and George Brenkert. The editors contribute an informative Introduction and an Epilogue to set the debate in its proper context.

Can ethical character be stimulated and enabled? Cognitive understanding of organizational ethics issues is important and necessary, but not sufficient. Ethical behaviour does not emerge automatically. Effective political method is necessary. While it may be difficult to teach ethical character, nonetheless, skill development with respect to joined ethics understanding and action-learning methods can help us develop the skills and confidence we need to actualize our ethical characters and social concerns. An action-learning approach to organizational ethics can help stimulate and enable ethical character.

In Values, Nature, and Culture in the American Corporation, distinguished ethicist William Frederick explores issues of fundamental importance to all who aspire to conduct their business affairs ethically. He begins with an examination of the three value systems in business that are basically incompatible, and therefore in constant tension. The first is the need for managers to efficiently allocate resources for maximum profits. The second is the natural tendency for managers, in pursuit of the first goal, to accumulate power for its own sake. The third is the desire for people in the community to create relationships that will perpetuate these communities. Frederick brings in a range of ideas and concepts from the social sciences as well as the natural sciences to illuminate his discussion. In the final section of the book he explores a range of issues of current concern to managers, including corporate culture and technology.

Edwin Hartman argues that ethical priciples should not derive from abstract theory, but from the real world of experience in organizations. He explains how ethical principles derive from what workers learn in their communities (firms), and that an ethical firm is one that creates the good life for the workers who contribute to its mission. His aproach is based on the Aristotelian tradition of refined common sense, from recent work on collective action problems in organizations, and from social contract theory.

The latest in the successful Ruffin Business Ethics series, this book argues that the idea of corporate strategy is worth rethinking as a way of talking systematically about ethics and business. In doing so, the author invents a new way of talking about corporate strategy. Several ethical truths are discussed in the course of the book. One is that how we talk about others profoundly influences how we act towards them. Another is how we talk about others can influence how those in our audiences will talk about others and act accordingly. A third is how we talk about others can become easily and comfortably routine.The author shows what it can mean to substitute a new language about business for the discourse that has "shackled too many men and women for too long".