Business ethics, which grew out of religion's interest in ethics in business and management education's concern with social issues, has become an interdisciplinary academic field. Thus far it has centered on teaching undergraduates. The easy work has now been done and the field has reached a plateau. To develop further it requires development on the MBA level, high quality research on new questions, positive models, better interdisciplinary integration, and attention to international business. Ultimately the field will stand or fall on (...) the quality of research those in it produce. (shrink)

This book addresses Muslim business community members who have to deal with ethical situations on a day-to-day basis. It gives key principles of management from an Islamic point of view. Its goal is to help Muslims engaged in business to act in accordance with the Islamic system of ethics. The writer’s experience with different Islamic activities give him a practical background that supports and enlightens his academic knowledge in the vital fields of business management and administration.

This paper assesses the potential of organisational culture as a means for improving ethics in organisations. Organisational culture is recognised as one determinant of how people behave, more or less ethically, in organisations. It is also incresingly understood as an attribute that management can and should influence to improve organisational performance. When things go wrong in organisations, managers look to the culture as both the source of problems and the basis for solutions. Two models of organisational culture and ethical behaviour (...) are evaluated. They rest on different understandings of organisational culture and the processes by which ethics are enhanced. Firstly, the prevailing approach holds that creating a unitary cohesive culture around core moral values is the solution to enhancing ethical behaviour. Both the feasibility and desirability of this approach, in terms of ethical outcomes, is questioned. The second model queries the existence of organisational culture at all, arguing that organisations are nothing more than shifting coalitions of subcultures. In this second model, the very porousness of the subcultures provides a catalyst for the scrutiny and critique of norms and practices. Such diversity and debate is construed as potentially a better safeguard for ethical behaviour than the uniformity promised by the unitary, strong culture model. (shrink)

An Introduction to Business Ethics explores the issues of individual and corporate responsibility in business, and integrates many contemporary and classic ...

Business ethics, which grew out of religion's interest in ethics in business and management education's concern with social issues, has become an interdisciplinary academic field. Thus far it has centered on teaching undergraduates. The easy work has now been done and the field has reached a plateau. To develop further it requires development on the MBA level, high quality research on new questions, positive models, better interdisciplinary integration, and attention to international business. Ultimately the field will stand or fall on (...) the quality of research those in it produce. (shrink)

Islamic Banks (IBs) are considered as having ethical identity, since the foundation of their business philosophy is closely tied to religion. In this article, we explore whether any discrepancy exists between the communicated (based on information disclosed in the annual reports) and ideal (disclosure of information deemed vital based on the Islamic ethical business framework) ethical identities and we measure this by what we have termed the Ethical Identity Index (EII). Our longitudinal survey results over a 3-year period indicate the (...) overall mean EII of only one IB out of seven surveyed to be above average. The remaining six IBs suffer from disparity between the communicated and ideal ethical identities. We further found the largest incongruence to be related to four dimensions: commitments to society; disclosure of corporate vision and mission; contribution to and management of zakah, charity and benevolent loans; and information regarding top management. The results have important implications for communication management if IBs are to enhance their image and reputation in society as well as to remain competitive. (shrink)