Vocational ethics and vocational moral socialization are important for the business ethical climate in a given country and in a given industry, but have not received attention in the literature. Our article suggests vocational ethics as a legitimate sub-specialty for business ethics research and development. The article addresses the exposure of vocational students to a combination of vocational school-based and workplace-based socialization, and outlines an agenda for teaching-oriented research and research-based teaching. More specifically, we first draft a conceptual frame of (...) reference and then report results and experiences from a scenario-based pilot study at one of the biggest vocational schools in the country. As a third step such a preliminary situation analysis inspires a number of suggestions for how one could start with developing this field, practically, empirically and theoretically. (shrink)

The number of online courses in business schools is growing dramatically, but little has been published about teaching business ethics courses online. This article addresses key pedagogical design, delivery, student engagement, and assessment issues that should be considered when creating a high-quality, asynchronous online business ethics course for either undergraduate or graduate business student populations. Best practices are discussed within an integrative case study approach based on the experiences of a director of online faculty development and two accomplished online business (...) ethics instructors, one teaching at a small college and the other at a research-oriented university—their successes, learning opportunities, and recommendations. (shrink)

This research advances our understanding of the manifestation of tensions and ethical issues in entrepreneurial finance. In doing so, we offer an overview of ethics in entrepreneurship and finance, delineating the curious paucity of research at their intersection. Using twelve vignettes, we put forward the asymmetries between entrepreneurs and investors and discuss a set of ethical problems that arise among key actors centring on the dynamics of venture partner entry and exit, applying the multiple-lens ethical perspective to analyse these issues. (...) This analysis culminates in the introduction of a general classification scheme for ethical problems across venture partners. Our analysis highlights the moral dimension inherent in the entry and exit of venture partners and the importance of considering moral judgement, as well as intention in future analysis of any decision-making. Our study also points to the moral responsibility in finance, especially to the mutual moral responsibilities of investors and entrepreneurs. By integrating ethics into finance, this research also demonstrates that in the case of venture partner exit, an ethical approach and decent governance go beyond compliance to the law. We conclude with implications for practitioners, specifically with some proposals for a solution to the problem of blocked and forced exit. Together, we make several contributions to the literature by integrating ethics, finance and entrepreneurship, and we call for future research to stimulate a growing body of research within this presently overlooked area. (shrink)

The paper takes a look at insurance customer dishonesty as a special case of consumer ethics, understood as a way of situation handling, as a moral choice between right and wrong, such as between self-interest vs. common-interest, in other words, a “moral temptation”. After briefly raising the question if different schools, of moral philosophy would conceptualize such moral temptations differently, the paper presents ‘moral psychology’ as a frame of reference, with a focus on cognitive moral development, moral attitude and moral (...) neutralization. Conceptualization questions can’t be answered finally without thinking at the same time of empirical research design and instrument design decisions, e.g. choosing between experiment vs. questionnaire studies, designing suitable moral temptation situations as an experiment vs. questionnaires with scenario vignettes. The paper discusses then experiences from a 2004 pilot survey, with a main focus on a few insurance dishonesty scenarios with follow-up questions. The paper has an open end, i.e. outlines desirable future theoretical, empirical and practical work with insurance customer dishonesty. (shrink)

In this article, we describe an assignment undertaken by our third-year students at a University Business School in the United Arab Emirates. The assignment serves to introduce corporate social responsibility and ethics in the undergraduate curriculum and to raise student awareness of how corporate activity together with corporate social responsibility can impact a country’s social, political, and cultural landscapes. We outline the assignment, student response to it, and its contribution to student intellectual development in terms of ethical perspective, philanthropy versus (...) ethics, economic development, and cultural diversity. We discuss the implications of this learning experience for our students and their greater understanding of items within the United Arab Emirates government’s strategic directions, namely, creating a cohesive society and a sustainable environment. (shrink)

In this study we argue that there is an interconnection between; the mechanistic worldview and competition, and the organic worldview and cooperation. To illustrate our main thesis we introduce two cases; first, Max Havelaar, a paradigmatic case of how business might function in an economy based upon solidarity and sustainability. Second, TINE, a Norwegian grocery corporation engaged in collusion in order to force a small competitor out of the market. On the one hand, in order to encourage market behaviour that (...) integrates economic, societal and environmental values we find that transparent cooperation within a context of an organic worldview takes care of important intrinsic as well as instrumental values. On the other hand, we find evidence for asserting that cooperation based upon a mechanistic worldview, typically leads to group egotistical consequences undermining the long term common good. (shrink)

This paper investigates the potential contribution of sociological perspectives for business ethics teaching. After a brief and selective literature review, the paper suggests starting with sociological thinking and three aspects of it: sociological concepts, sociological imagination, and postponed judgment. After presenting two short case teaching stories and three sociological concepts or frameworks, the potential inspiration value of a sociological checklist for analysing or diagnosing business ethics cases is tried out. As an open ending, some short final suggestions are made for (...) further use of sociological perspectives in both business ethics teaching and research. (shrink)