Entrepreneurship, Ethics of

Writing on the ethics of entrepreneurship has generally taken the form of defenses of free market capitalism, with particular attention given to the libertarian ideals supported by this system of wealth creation and distribution. Consequentialist critiques have pointed to the distributive inequities that attend concentration of wealth in the hands of a few entrepreneurs. Stakeholder theory has been invoked as one means by which to legitimize the claims of those constituent groups that are negatively affected by entrepreneurial activity. Theorists have usefully outlined moral imagination as one mechanism that is both consistent with the entrepreneurial drive toward innovation and inclusive of a variety of stakeholder interests.

With respect to the “rightness” and “wrongness” of entrepreneurial praxis, the potential ethical pitfalls facing entrepreneurs have been usefully outlined. ...