A focused, easy-to-read, book that defines and illustrates contemporary business examples with applied ethical principles. This book uses a stakeholder approach to identify the central constituencies surrounding a business ethical dilemma, incident or crisis, whether it is an environmental, regulatory, advertising, health related, multinational, or employee workplace issue. No other paperback ethics text has the variety of managerial and ethical frameworks that this book contains...

A new approach to understanding the nature of ethics and ethical decision making, not only in the context of business, but also in other life contexts.

Empirical analyses of the ethics of corporations with the aim to improve the state of corporate ethics are rare. This paper develops an integrated, normative model of corporate ethics by conceptualizing the ethical quality of organizations and by relating this contextual quality to various expressions of immoral behavior. This so-called Ethics Qualities Model for organizations, which contains 21 ethical qualities, allows one to assess the ethical content of institutional groups of individuals. A proper conceptualization is highly relevant both for the (...) empirical corroboration of business ethics theories and for managerial purposes, such as judging individual and group performance or informing external stakeholders. The empirical applicability of the model is illustrated by an explorative case study of a large, globally operating financial institution. This case-study demonstrates that the corporate ethical qualities differ with respect to their perceived optimality as well as to their estimated impact on (un)ethical conduct. The various results provide managers with many clues to understand their organization and to take effective measures to improve the ethical content of their organization. (shrink)

After years of debate over the importance of ethical conduct in organizations, the federal government has decided to institutionalize ethics as a buffer to prevent legal violations in organizations. The key requirements of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (FSG) are outlined, and suggested actions managers should adopt to improve ethical compliance are presented. An effective compliance program is more a process and commitment than a specific blueprint for conduct. The organization has the responsibility to create an organizational climate to reduce misconduct. (...) The adoption of a FSG compliance program has the potential to substantially lessen organizational penalties if there is due diligence to prevent misconduct. Federal courts determine the effectiveness of an FSG program after a violation occurs. (shrink)

We present an ideal profile of an emerging organizational function: the Ethics Officer. We argue that the main contribution of an EO is to provide management with a broad perspective of the organization's stakeholders – one that emphasizes the interests of all stakeholders, including those not affiliated with the dominant coalitions in the organization. In order to avoid turning the EO into a rubber stamp for management activities, we suggest that certain conditions prevail to enable the person in this position (...) to exercise impartial, independent judgment. These conditions are embodied in our profile, which maintains that an ideal EO should have appropriate organizational status, functional independence, professionalism, knowledge of organizational issues, and knowledge of ethics theory. We suggest that the function of EO may be performed by a professional who is already employed by the organization, and we use the internal auditor as an example. (shrink)

Following the example of the many organizations in the United States which have a code of ethics, an increasing interest on the part of companies, trade organizations, (semi-)governmental organizations and professions in the Netherlands to develop codes of ethics can be witnessed. We have been able to escort a variety of organizations in this process. The process that organizations must go through in order to attain a code involves a variety of difficult decisions. In this article we will, based on (...) our experiences, describe twelve dilemmas which will have to be solved during the development of such a code. When one or more of these dilemmas is ignored or an ungrounded choice is made, the effectiveness of the code will be negatively affected. Furthermore, the twelve dilemmas could be used as twelve dimensions to exemplify organizational codes of ethics. In this article we will also discuss a method to organize ethics within the organization. This will serve as a guide as to how, with respect to the dilemmas described, adequate considerations can be made. The article will be concluded with a description of our experiences at the Dutch Schiphol Airport. This case demonstrates how the aforementioned reasoning can be applied in practice. (shrink)