Although the idea of intellectual property (IP) rights—proprietary rights to what one invents, writes, paints, composes or creates—is firmly embedded in Western thinking, these rights are now being challenged across the globe in a number of areas. This paper will focus on one of these challenges: government-sanctioned copying of patented drugs without permission or license of the patent owner in the name of national security, in health emergencies, or life-threatening epidemics. After discussing standard rights-based and utilitarian arguments defending intellectual property we will present another model. IP is almost always a result of a long history of scientific or technological development and numbers of networks of creativity, not the act of a single person or a group of people at one moment in time. Thus thinking about and evaluating IP requires thinking about IP as shared rights. A network approach to IP challenges a traditional model of IP. It follows that the owner of those rights has some obligations to share that information or its outcomes. If that conclusion is applied to the distribution of antiretroviral drugs, what pharmaceutical companies are ethically required to do to increase access to these medicines in the developing world will have to be reanalyzed from a more systemic perspective.

Despite extensive research on organizational virtue, our understanding about factors that promote virtue within organizations remains unclear. Drawing on upper echelon theory, we examine the relationship between five top management team (TMT) characteristics and organizational virtue orientation (OVO)—the integrated set of values and beliefs that support ethical traits and virtuous behaviors of an organization. Specifically, we utilize prospectuses of initial public offering (IPO) firms and 10-K post-IPO filings to explore how TMT composition with respect to member age, tenure, education, functional background, and gender influences OVO. Additionally, we examine the moderating effects of organizational size, and argue that the more expansive structures and processes associated with larger organizations diminish the main relationships. Our findings, using two sources of data, are consistent, but somewhat mixed in their support for our hypotheses. Overall, TMT characteristics do appear to influence OVO, but in more complex and counterintuitive ways than initially expected.

The article aims to bridge divides between political theory and management and organization studies in theorizing workplace democracy. To achieve this aim, the article begins by introducing a new definition of democracy which, it is contended, is better suited than mainstream accounts to highlight the democratizing potential of employee involvement. It then defines employee involvement as an offshoot of early twentieth-century humanistic psychologies, from which it inherits an emancipatory ambition. In a third step, the article presents employee involvement as a set of organizational practices liable to transform dominant patterns of authority and social interaction in the workplace. The article concludes by contending that, apart from representation/participation and the employee’s voice, employee involvement must be considered the third necessary pillar of workplace democracy, endowed with distinctive normative features that neither representation/participation nor voices can aptly capture.

MUST the empirical study of business ethics and values stand in the shadow of positivism? If so, does that constrain such studies to normatively sterile descriptions of purported facts? And would the methods thus employed fall short of yielding needed normative perspectives on business decisions that occasionally mean life or death, and even more often affect the quality of life, for those who feel their weight? Are the values and ethical principles that lie behind business actions so elusive, so inaccessible, so imprecise that they must remain forever in the shadowy realm of speculation and commonsense opinion, never to be liberated from positivism’s Gulag?

Experience often manifests a gap between moral principles that are both rationally defensible and widely accepted, and the actual practice of business. In this article, I adapt Pope Francis’s discussion of conscience, gradualness, and discernment, in Amoris Laetitia, for the philosophical context of business ethics in order to better conceptualize and to identify means of narrowing the gap between objective moral principles and business practice. Specifically, right conscience allows for a better understanding of the scope and boundary conditions of moral principles, gradualness highlights the need to identify ways that moral principles can be properly implemented within organizations, and discernment draws attention to the importance of solidarity, in order to avoid one-sided, self-serving action descriptions. In these ways, Francis’s discussion contributes to the narrowing of the gap between objective moral principles and business practice. I conclude by discussing ways that Francis’s framework can inform business ethics courses.

Tackling grand challenges requires coordination and sustained effort among multiple organizations and stakeholders. Yet research on stakeholder theory has been conceptually constrained in capturing this complexity: existing accounts tend to focus either on dyadic level firm–stakeholder ties or on stakeholder networks within which the focal organization is embedded. We suggest that addressing grand challenges requires a more generative conceptualization of organizations and their constituents as stakeholder systems. Using the metaphor of ballet and insights from dance theory, we highlight four defining dimensions of stakeholder systems (two structural and two dyadic); we proceed to offer a dynamic model of how those dimensions may interact and coevolve. Our metaphor and resulting theory of stakeholder systems are thereby well equipped to incorporate the complexity of tackling grand challenges, where many contemporary stakeholder arrangements are oriented around issues rather than firms.

The large, professionally managed corporation is the distinctive economic institution of the twentieth century. It has proved uniquely effective in mobilizing resources and knowledge; increasing productivity; and creating new technologies, products, and services. Corporations have proliferated and grown because they meet the needs of various members of society: customers, workers and communities, as well as investors. The worldwide spread of corporate activity has produced an increasingly integrated and interdependent global economy.

The success of the corporation, however, inevitably gives rise to questions and criticisms. Corporations are spontaneous and voluntary associations in which diverse individuals and interests collaborate for the creation and distribution of wealth. Some critics question whether organizations with the vast scale and scope of contemporary multinationals can be effectively controlled and directed toward these purposes. Others are concerned about the limited range of interests directly represented in corporate governance, and the lack of openness in corporate decision-making. And, as multinational corporations expand their activities and linkages, both corporate managers and their critics search for principles for action that transcend national borders and cultural values, and modes of operation that will achieve the broad purposes of the corporation on a long-term and sustainable basis, without undue conflict with diverse human and social norms.

In order to understand the nature of ethical evaluation as promoted by ethical codes and as practiced by ethicists, we need to understand the notions of rationality and judgment in terms of which codes are developed and ethical pronouncements are made. Although this paper focuses on what might be called “professional contexts” of ethical evaluation, the proposed view of rationality and judgment is argued to be common to all defensible ethical judgments. The paper begins by examining a classical interpretation of rationality which asserts that rational judgments are universal, necessary, and rule-guided. This is contrasted with a more robust and arguably superior view of rationality articulated by Norman Brown. Brown argues that rational judgments are neither universal, necessary, nor rule-guided. This non-classical view implies that ethical judgments are rational and can be justified in the same way that judgments in law and medicine can be justified. However, if ethics is not a matter of following rules, the very possibility of ethical codes is in doubt. A brief survey of some standard objections to ethical codes shows that they often tacitly rely on the non-classical sense of rationality to show that ethical codes are defective in the way just described: that is, as instruments designed to promote rote, non-rational behavior, codes cannot promote the rational responses that form the core of ethical behavior. However, a closer look at ethical codes reveals that they are not sets of rules. On the contrary, many codes are designed to promote the very kind of non-classical rational judgment that critics argue codes cannot promote. As a result, many of the standard objections to codes are misguided. Yet, this analysis does not suggest that codes are problem free, but rather that their problems are different from what has been traditionally thought. One apparent problem of this analysis is that the similarity of ethical reasoning to legal and medical reasoning suggests that there are ethical experts just as there are legal and medical experts. Although the notion of ethical expertise is one that is thought to be elitist and oppressive, I argue that there is a defensible analysis of ethical expertise that is fundamentally egalitarian. Finally, some ramifications of this analysis are suggested for organizational ethical codes and the practice of business ethics consulting. It is suggested that organizations can play a crucial role in solving some of the most pressing social problems we have, such as those concerning race and gender.

This paper explores an ontological approach to the issue of whether corporations, like individuals, are morally responsible for their actions. More specifically, we investigate the identity of organizations relative to the individuals that compose them. Based on general systems theory, the traditional assumption is that social collectives are more complex, variable, and loosely coupled than individuals. This assumption rests on two premises. The first is a view of the individual as simple, stable, and tightly coupled (i.e., unitary). The second premise is that the relationship between social collectives and their members is characterized by the complete inclusion of individuals in higher order systems.

We examine the social science literature that bears on these premises and conclude that they are false. The differences between organizations and individuals in the magnitude of complexity or variability appear to be minimal or nonexistent. An implication of our analysis is that individuals and organizations are coterminous and, therefore, inseparable as moral agents.

Since the dawn of capitalism, corporations have been regarded by the law as separate legal “persons.” Corporate “personhood” has nonetheless remained controversial, and our understanding of corporate personhood often influences our thinking about the social responsibilities of corporations. This essay, written in honor of Prof. Thomas Donaldson, explores the tension in recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delaware Chancery Court about what corporations are, whose interests they serve, and who gets to make decisions about what they do. These decisions suggest that the law does not unequivocally support Donaldson’s vision of corporations as “moral” persons.

This research examines in a collectivist culture the influence of cognitive moral development, attitudes toward rule-directed behavior, and the perceived importance of codes of conduct and professional standards on auditor judgments about ethical dilemmas. Taiwanese audit professionals were asked to respond to two ethical dilemmas. The first dilemma concerns a situation in which the auditor is asked to acquiesce to a controller’s request to conceal an irregularity. The probability that the auditor’s acquiescence is discovered (i.e., the threat of a sanction) was manipulated in this scenario. The second dilemma involves a case in which the auditor has information that a write-down of obsolete inventory will have a material effect on the earnings of a corporation, and must consider whether or not to inform an individual who is heavily invested in the corporation. The individual’s ingroup status (i.e., whether the individual was a relative or friend of the auditor) was manipulated in this scenario.

Auditors were more likely to agree with violations of ethical standards in the first scenario (concealing a client employee’s irregularity) than in the second (revealing confidential information to parties outside the client). In the first scenario, auditors with lower levels of cognitive moral development were less likely to agree with violations of ethical standards when the threat of a sanction was present, while the judgments of those with higher levels of cognitive moral development were not affected by the presence of sanctions. Contrary to expectations, auditors were more likely to agree with violations of ethical standards when the individual involved was a close friend, rather than a relative. In general, as the perceived importance of rules increased, the propensity to violate the Code of Conduct decreased.

Drawing upon the theoretical debate on the concept of common good involving, in particular, Sison and Fontrodona (2012), I aim to show how the common good principle can serve as the basis for a new diversity perspective. Each of the three dominant diversity approaches—equality, diversity management, and inclusion—runs the ethical risk of focusing on community or individual levels, or on particular disciplines—economic, social, or moral. This article demonstrates that the common good principle could mitigate the ethical risks inherent to each of these diversity approaches. There are three positive aspects to a comprehensive common good perspective: 1) it includes considering different community levels, which it connects by subsidiarity, 2) it embraces the moral, social, and economic fields, which it connects by teleological hierarchy, and 3) it avoids the risk of exclusion by generating a sense of solidarity.

In providing an ethical guide for managers, the Clarkson Principles offer one part of a possible professional code, namely, that managers have a fiduciary duty—a duty of loyalty of the corporation’s stakeholders. However, the Clarkson Principles contain little advise for managers when they act politically to fashion the regulatory framework in which stakeholders negotiate. When managers participate in these arenas, I argue that they ought to assume a second fiduciary duty—a duty of loyalty to fair bargaining. Where the first duty of loyalty pertains to the firm’s “constituents,” the second refers to the firm’s “constitution”—to the rules by which the firm’s stakeholders bargain and to the background conditions that distribute advantages. Together, these two fiduciary duties establish the large good—development as freedom—from which a managerial profession can mature.

Business ethics research has long been interested in understanding the conditions under which ethical consumption is consistent versus context-dependent. Extant research suggests that many consumers fail to make consistent ethical consumption decisions and tend to engage in ethical decisions associated with ingroup (vs. outgroup) identity cues. To fill this gap, four experiments examine how construal levels moderate the influence of ingroup versus outgroup identity cues in ethical consumption. The studies support the contention that when consumers use concrete construal to process information, they will focus on ingroup cues and make ethical consumption decisions that are aligned with ingroup biases. However, when consumers use abstract construal, they will act more consistently with their inner goals rather than focusing on ingroup and outgroup cues. Social goodwill, which indicates desires to give back to society, is identified as mediating the effects. The findings have important implications for ethical consumption and social influence literature.

This paper traces the historical roots of some of our current preoccupations with the ethics of business. Its central argument is that many of the contemporary criteria that we use to evaluate the ethics of business are not new; rather, they date back several centuries. This paper illustrates this thesis by comparing historical and contemporary discussions of three sets of issues: the relationship between ethics and profits, the relationship between private gain and the public good and the tension between the results of capitalism and the intentions of businessmen.

The fact that these tensions are inherent in the nature of capitalism, if not in human nature itself, does not make our contemporary concerns or standards any less valid. On the contrary, it underlies their significance. Contemporary discussions of business ethics constitute part of an ongoing moral dialogue with both deep secular and religious roots.

I address an interesting puzzle of how marginalized groups gain self-representation and influence firms’ strategies. Accordingly, I examine the case of access to low-cost HIV/AIDS drugs in South Africa by integrating W. E. B. Du Bois’s work into stakeholder theory. Du Bois’s scholarly work, most notably his founding contribution to Black scholarship, has profound significance in the humanities and social sciences disciplines and vast potential to inspire a new way of thinking and doing research in the management and organization fields, including business ethics research. By drawing on Du Bois’s works, I argue that through reconstruction of their selves—knowing their souls—marginalized groups know their capabilities better, enabling them to overcome their political and strategic limitations and ensure their true self-representation. They are also empowered to use political imagination and strategies of resistance against more powerful opponents. This influences powerful actors to accept the demands of marginalized groups.

The recent recession only adds to the widespread fear that loyalties in the business world are rapidly becoming obsolete. This article spells out some of the history that has put loyalty in jeopardy and some of the characteristics of this affecton. It gives reasons why it will not disappear from the workplace.

The above analysis is then followed by a contrast between past and present motivations for work and a description of the workplace of the future according to three authors. Since all of these address loyalty issues directly or indirectly, there follows an analysis of the new loyalties that can be anticipated or are beginning to emerge in the workplace and the role of the manager in managing these. The article concludes by placing these future loyalties within a framework inspired by Josiah Royce.

Robert Solomon has suggested that we now have collectively moved beyond the point of treating the notion of “business ethics” as oxymoronic. If the possibility of business ethics were indeed a settled question, then there would be little point in offering yet another investigation into the character of business practice and norms. But if the “we” of this claim refers to philosophers, other writers and the community as a whole, then Solomon's claim appears false. For we remain very much concerned about the morality of business. Our doubts regarding business legitimacy have been brought into ever sharper focus by the trend of the past twenty years to assimilate business to the so-called “liberal” or “learned” professions of medicine, the ministry and the law. For, as Paul Camenisch has noted, while the three liberal professions all aim at readily identifiable goods and display an “atyptical moral commitment,” it is far from clear that the end of business is good. Since prof its can be made through the distribution of products many would regard as immoral, using labor practices of equally dubious morality (e.g., slave labor), it is hard to see how business can lay claim, like the other professions, to a legitimating moral commitment. Business legitimacy has been further undermined by research suggesting that business managers’ “expertise” creates more problems than it solves; and that the much-touted science of managerial effectiveness is a sham since no such science of controlling human behavior either does or can exist.

Lateral hiring is the intentional action of one employer to identify, solicit, and hire an individual or group of employees currently employed by another firm, a practice often pejoratively labeled “poaching.” We use the method of critical genealogy to demonstrate that the norms that discourage lateral hiring are constructions used by powerful employers to control the turnover of their employees, making them subjects of their employer’s power rather than free and autonomous people in their own right. We suggest instead that ethical responsibility for entertaining or rejecting lateral hiring offers rests with the focal employee(s). We conclude that the form and symmetry of loyalty between employees and their current employers are the determinants of the appropriateness of an employee’s decision to entertain and accept outside offers. These conclusions imply responsibilities for employers to forge (and employees to honor) symmetrical relational loyalty in the workplace, but not for alternate employers to refrain from making lateral hiring offers.