Over recent years, there has been a focus in corporate activity upon the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and one of its central platforms, the notion of sustainability, and particularly sustainable development. We argue in this article that the use of such a term has the effect of obfuscating the real situation regarding the effect of corporate activity upon the external environment and the consequent implications for the future. One of the effects of persuading that corporate activity is sustainable (...) is that the cost of capital for the firm is reduced as investors are misled into thinking that the level of risk involved in their investment is lower than it actually is. We analyse the effects of this misrepresentation and argue for a fuller debate about sustainability. (shrink)

Oceania is a diverse region consisting of 29 countries, all of which are islands; its total population is approximately 379 million people. Business Ethics is firmly established as an academic field in the region’s two OECD countries, Australia and New Zealand, and in Singapore, is still developing in a dozen other countries, but no development at all has been found in half of the region’s countries, including each of those that has no higher education institutions. A major task for Business (...) Ethics in this region is to seed the development of the field in countries in which development has not yet begun, and to assist development where it is nascent. The key change to the focus of academic business ethics in this region over the past 15 years has been a shift in focus from the organisation and its employees, to business’ impact on the natural environment and external stakeholders. (shrink)

Central Asia presents a unique configuration of historical experience and societal responses that have been interacting and evolving for thousands of years. The current era of economic, political, and societal transformation in Central Asia began with the peaceful devolution of the Soviet Union and transition to the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. Expectations about the natural social order based on western beliefs and experience may not apply in this part of the world, for—like all transitional and emerging market (...) economies—Central Asia has inherited another social order that predates recent history. The field of Business Ethics provides an arena in which these issues can be explored. In this article, an overview of the current standing of Business Ethics as a field for teaching, training, and research in Central Asia is provided. Suggestions for further consideration and future research are presented in the concluding section. (shrink)

In this survey of business ethics in Europe, we compare the present state of business ethics in Europe with the situation as described by Enderle (BEER 5(1):33–46, 1996 ). At that time, business ethics was still dominated by a mainly philosophical, normative analysis of business issues with a maximum of 25 chairs in business ethics all over Europe. It has since expanded dramatically in numbers as well as diversified into many different domains. We find this rich diversity in the conception (...) of business ethics back in the answers of our respondents to every single question. The concepts they propose, the courses they teach, the subjects under research as well as the training and consultancy offered to clients and even the challenges for the future all reflect this diversity. Decisive for the expansion of business ethics in Europe has been the advance of CSR and the official backing of CSR by the European Commission. We further argue that the prevalence and importance of business ethics and CSR differs throughout Europe. A rough approximation based on our survey results and literature review is that it is more important and more developed in core and Nordic European countries and somewhat less in Southern and Eastern European countries. The real East with countries like Belarus and Bulgaria remains a challenge. (shrink)

The article provides an overview of the Sub-Sahara African region and the four sub-regions in which the 44 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa were divided for the purpose of the Sub-Saharan survey of Business Ethics as field of teaching, training and research. A brief overview of existing literature that reflects on training, teaching and research in the field of Business Ethics in the Sub-Sahara African region is given, after which the research process and methods that were used in the survey are (...) introduced. Then a comparative summary of the findings across the four sub-regions (Western Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa and Francophone Africa) in the region is presented. The discussion of the findings commences with a discussion on the terminology that is used to refer to Business and Economic Ethics in Sub-Saharan Africa. It then provides an overview of the prevalence and distribution of Business Ethics as field of teaching, training and research in Sub-Saharan Africa that demonstrates the substantial growth in the field of Business Ethics since 2000 when an earlier survey was conducted. The focus areas in the field of Business Ethics are identified as well as the major themes that were found with regard to teaching, training and research in Business Ethics. Also the major challenges that are foreseen in the field of Business Ethics over the next 5 year are discussed. Finally, a number of concluding remarks are made that highlight unique features and challenges in the current state of Business Ethics in Sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)