Social relations are predominantly influenced by an exchange paradigm whereby the logic of reciprocity shapes behaviour. If the notion of exchange instrumentalism is common across different business disciplines, this does not deny attempts -such as through gift exchange theory—to present different conceptions of traditional exchange-based relations. Gift exchange theory appears promising as it seeks to establish more meaning and significance to the nature and context of exchange relations between human actors or parties. The underlying processes may be different for gift (...) exchange and more traditional economic-based exchanges, but the general outcome remains the same -the obligation of reciprocity between actors. In this article, we develop an alternative conception of social and business experience that transcends the dominant logic of exchange: the existential gift. Firmly embedded in the idea of giving for its own sake, the existential gift suggests that for some individuals the expectations of reciprocity are neither sought nor established. Generosity that is expressed in both tangible and intangible ways need not depend on the response of intended receivers or recipients (e. g. acceptance or non-acceptance) to precipitate future acts of giving. Based on the logic of unconditionality, the existential gift provides human actors with greater freedom in their choices and relationships. It may well be that this freedom, in turn, creates a new * ethic of generosity' whereby significant progress can be made towards developing more human models and practices in business. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a relationship between a person's degree of religiousness and corporate social responsibility orientation. A total of 411 managers and 506 students from seven universities were surveyed. The statistical analysis showed that religiousness does influence students' orientation toward the economic, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of business. It does not, however, have a significant impact upon the managers' attitudes. When the "low religiousness" students and managers were compared, differences were found with (...) respect to the economic, ethical, and philanthropic components of corporate social responsibility. Similar results were obtained when the "high religiousness" students and managers were compared. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The paper is a response to Richard De George's essay, Theological Ethics and Business Ethics. It defends the possibility of theologically oriented approaches to business ethics by pointing out certain deficiencies in business ethics narrowly based on the premisses of analytic moral philosophy. In particular it argues, in a manner consistent with Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981), that such a program of business ethics is insufficiently critical of its own roots in the social fiction of bureaucratic rationality. After showing how (...) this ideology governs De George's negative judgments on theological approaches to business ethics, the author outlines a program of critical reflection that would draw from the intellectual traditions of both theology and philosophy in order to facilitate a dialogue in business ethics that no longer is captive in the Iron Cage of bureaucratic rationality. (shrink)

It has been acknowledged on numerous occasions that personal religiousness is a potential source of ethical norms, and consequently, an influence in ethical evaluations. An extensive literature review provides little in the way of empirical investigation of this recognized affect. This investigation conceptualizes religiousness as a motivation for ethical action, and discovers significant differences in ethical judgements among respondents categorized by personal religious motivation. Suggestions as to the source of these differences, and the implications which they offer to managers are (...) discussed and supported from the literature. (shrink)

Managers face increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous situations that are more and more challenging to navigate. Ethical decision-making has become particularly complicated considering that codes, frameworks and protocols have proven deficient in resolving moral dilemmas. Managers’ unpreparedness to handle such challenges reflects the ineffectiveness of business ethics education, calling for new approaches towards training managers. This article makes a case for transforming business ethics education by taking it back to its roots. This implies the re-incorporation of its foundational discipline: (...) philosophy. Philosophy offers a rigorous approach for decision-making, which helps managers face the unknown. It helps them analyse situations from different perspectives, reconsider how things are done and examine the underlying premises of their thinking. It can strengthen one of the most central managerial competencies: the ability to reason, especially ethically. As the foundational discipline of business, ethics and their intersect, philosophy is uniquely positioned to elevate business ethics education for managers at all levels. It can help current and future managers to reflect more deeply and critically on the ethical issues they face. (shrink)

The dominant approach to understanding Islamic Business Ethics has been based almost exclusively on either interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna or influenced by Western understanding of Islam and ethics. However, there is a rich—largely ignored-tradition of ethical analysis conducted by Muslim philosophers which would broaden our understanding of Islamic ethics and hence IBE. We seek to correct this imbalance by examining works of Al-Ghazali, an early Muslim philosopher, scholar, and mystic. His approach to Sufism, combining an interpretation of revelation (...) with reason, can contribute to new developments in business ethics scholarship and practice especially in Muslim communities. His thought portrays a vibrant work ethic that, while based in Sufism, has important practical implications for business. We argue that including such historically and contextually recognized perspectives in our understanding of BE, both in theory and in practice, would work well with an audience that looks to Islam as a source of justice and proper moral conduct. (shrink)

The study reported here sought to examine the ethical orientations of business managers and business students in Singapore. Data were obtained using Defining Issue Test. Analysis of Variance revealed that age, education and religious affiliation had influenced cognitive moral development stages of the respondents. Vocation, gender and ethnicity did not seem to have affected moral judgement of the subjects. Contrary to the general view, both business students and business managers demonstrated the same level of sensitivity to ethical dimensions of decision-making. (...) Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed. (shrink)

Software piracy, the illegal and unauthorized duplication, sale, or distribution of software, is a widespread and costly phenomenon. According to Business Software Alliance, over 41% of the PC software packages installed worldwide were unauthorized copies. Software piracy behavior has been investigated for more than 30 years. However, after a review of the relevant literature, there appears to be two voids in this literature: a lack of studies in non-Western countries and a scarcity of process studies. This study contributes to literature (...) by developing a software piracy model to better understand the decision-making process that underlies this unethical behavior. The model was tested using data collected from a sample of 323 undergraduate business students. Consistent with the Theory of Reasoned Action, attitudes toward software piracy and subjective norms were significant predictors of intention to pirate software. Also, the results suggested that ethical ideology, public self-consciousness, and low self-control moderated the effect of these variables on intention to pirate software. The results have important practical implications for the software industry and governments hoping to curtail software piracy. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future studies are discussed as well. (shrink)

This article serves as an editorial introduction to this special issue on Pope Benedict’s encyclical-letter, Caritas in Veritate ( 2009 ) and its engagement with the field of business ethics. According to this document , love in truth, which includes justice, is indeed presented as a basic moral foundation for economic and business ethics. The article provides an overview of some major themes in the encyclical and their relationship to the essays in this special issue. The authors in this issue (...) are an interdisciplinary group of scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology, psychology, business, economics, and political science who address the relevance and relationship of the encyclical to business ethics in light of their disciplinary field. Their articles include, among other topics, discussions based on recent scholarship on business ethics, the economics and ethics relationship, the orientation of business to the common good, the encyclical’s proposal of the principle of gratuitousness and the logic of gift in ordinary business, and new perspectives on economic exchange and bargains and hybrid forms of business. (shrink)

Much has been written about the general moral duty to love one’s neighbors. In this article, I explore the specific application of this moral duty in the work setting. I argue from a secular perspective that individuals have the moral duty to love their stakeholders. Loving one’s stakeholders is an affective valuing of the stake-related values these stakeholders pursue and as such is the real recognition of one’s stakeholders as stakeholders and of oneself as a stakeholder of one’s stakeholders. This (...) moral concept of stakeholder love offers promising contributions to stakeholder theory, leadership theories, and ethical theories in general and business ethics theories in particular. (shrink)

The specific purpose of this introductory paper is to explicitly introduce readers to some of the important Biblical, Talmudic, andpost-Talmudic texts which deal with business ethics. As the discussion will show, Judaism’s traditional texts treat an amazing variety of issues emphasizing responsibilities in the business context. These texts are both legalistic and aspirational in character. The theme of this study is that an authentic Jewish business ethics needs to grow out of an understanding of the needs of modern, complex economies (...) but need not accept the status quo as binding. Jewish business ethics texts provide rules of behavior, but more importantly, the texts reveal a vision encouraging us to incorporate the highest human and spiritual ideals into the common world of business.The second section of the paper emphasizes that in order to develop Jewish business ethics, especially (but not exclusively) at the levelof the organization, models of aspiration will of necessity play an integral role. A Jewish business ethics which conceptualizes Judaismas merely a set of legal rules is bound to failure. A key conclusion of this section is that Jewish business ethics needs to continue to self-consciously promote models of aspirations, as well as rely on fixed legal norms.Finally, the third section of the paper examines a specific corporate policy (no smoking) in light of a Jewish business ethics. (shrink)

Social relations are predominantly influenced by an exchange paradigm whereby the logic of reciprocity shapes behaviour. If the notion of exchange instrumentalism is common across different business disciplines, this does not deny attempts – such as through gift exchange theory – to present different conceptions of traditional exchange-based relations. Gift exchange theory appears promising as it seeks to establish more meaning and significance to the nature and context of exchange relations between human actors or parties. The underlying processes may be (...) different for gift exchange and more traditional economic-based exchanges, but the general outcome remains the same – the obligation of reciprocity between actors. In this article, we develop an alternative conception of social and business experience that transcends the dominant logic of exchange: the existential gift. Firmly embedded in the idea of giving for its own sake, the existential gift suggests that for some individuals the expectations of reciprocity are neither sought nor established. Generosity that is expressed in both tangible and intangible ways need not depend on the response of intended receivers or recipients to precipitate future acts of giving. Based on the logic of unconditionality, the existential gift provides human actors with greater freedom in their choices and relationships. It may well be that this freedom, in turn, creates a new ‘ethic of generosity’ whereby significant progress can be made towards developing more human models and practices in business. (shrink)

This paper criticizes De George's portrayal of theological ethics and its purported inability to make a distinctive contribution to business ethics with the following theses. (1) De George's understanding of the nature of theological ethics is faulty. Consequently his typology of the field is not an adequate description of the range of prevailing approaches. (2) A constructive proposal for religious ethics is offered which takes as its starting points (a) an aspect of human experience (self-transcendence) and (b) the human capacity (...) to reason in order to claim (via Kant, Rahner, Gamwell, and others) that practical reason is religious in nature. As such, a distinctive contribution of religious ethics is its capacity to evaluate business activity in terms of its consistency with our most fundamental, all-inclusive human loyalities and affirmations about the nature of reality itself. (shrink)