The finance industry is required to respond to public criticism of perceived immoral behaviour. To create legitimacy, financial firms not only undertake corporate social responsibility activities, but also support such activities with precise justifications. In this paper, we study CSR justifications appearing in annual and sustainability reports from the Swedish finance industry. Our objective is to investigate the ethical character of CSR justifications in the finance industry. This is an interesting topic, both because CSR carries ethical meaning and because CSR (...) justifications play a role in actual business activities. A secondary aim of this article is to test whether decoupled corporate claims about CSR can be recoupled, which would potentially help companies to act responsibly. The observed CSR justifications avoided the fundamental question of whether the finance industry does in fact have responsibilities, and they did not manifest awareness of stakeholders’ demands for CSR. Seemingly value-based CSR activities often lacked ethical justifications. These characteristics do not harmonize with the responsible image that the contemporary finance industry wants to portray. Our counterintuitive finding is that amorality prevails in the justifications that banks give for undertaking CSR activities. (shrink)

This paper provides a detailed study of fraud in practice through an empirical investigation of B.P.Sayers, a family-owned stockbroking firm that had been in existence for over 100 years and that collapsed due to the fraudulent activities of the firm's junior partner. An interpretive narrative methodology has been employed which has resulted in the development of a detailed understanding of fraud and moral breakdown in organizations, resulting from a failure of responsibility that arises from a dysfunctional work identification and its (...) moral implications. In developing this account of fraud, the conceptual framework utilized is drawn from the moral philosophical work of Emmanuel Levinas who explicated how the breakdown of social relations of responsibility results, in turn, in moral breakdown. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to take a fresh look at the concept of wealth creation that is urgently needed, given the huge gap between the global importance of wealth creation and the attention paid to it. It is argued that its notion we encounter is often very simple (as in "making money") or extremely vague (as in "adding value"). In the first section "Need for a fresh look at the creation of wealth", the need for a fresh look (...) is highlighted by pointing to three concerns about globalization and the roles and responsibilities of corporations. In the second section "Conceptual clarifications: what is the creation of wealth?", a rich concept of wealth creation is developed that includes physical, financial, human, and social capital, encompasses private and public wealth, accounts for its production and distribution, recognizes its material and spiritual side, and places wealth in the time horizon of sustainability. Moreover, creating (wealth) as "making something new and better" is distinguished from possessing and acquiring, and different motivations required for wealth creation are explored. The third section "Challenges for business ethics" discusses several challenges of this rich concept for the understanding of business ethics. (shrink)

This paper describes and discusses the Enron Corporation debacle. The paper presents the business ethics background and leadership mechanisms affecting Enron''s collapse and eventual bankruptcy. Through a systematic analysis of the organizational culture at Enron (following Schein''s frame of reference) the paper demonstrates how the company''s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees.