Business Ethics

Conceptual Overview

Business ethics is a relatively young academic field. A generally accepted estimate is that business ethics has been with us since the early 1980s. This does not mean that there was no attention for the ethical side of business and capitalism before 1980, but rather that it was not institutionalized into a recognized academic field. In the United States, early interest in the ethics of business was inspired by certain religious motives. Key questions related to whether it was possible to reconcile the principles of capitalism with moral conduct as prescribed by a variety of religions, and how should business people respond to the challenge of religion? In Europe, the interest in the topic was more inspired by humanist interests. Here the key questions related to how one should treat workers decently, and how business organizations can be beneficial for society as such. There is no doubt that the suggested distinction between an American and a European approach is rather vague. On both sides of the Atlantic, these and other questions were not only raised by academics but also by practitioners, clergymen, novelists, journalists, and politicians.

A number of reasons are generally provided when considering why the relatively distinctive academic field of business ethics finally came into being. First, an increasing concern about the detrimental effects of business in the capitalist world arose in the 1960s and 1970s. Due to the rise of new media—television, new technologies, more aggressive journalism, and so on—corporate scandals and misconduct were highlighted much more often than in the years before. Apparently, one could no longer take for granted that business organizations were beneficial to the world. In this sense, business ethics is nothing more than an academic endeavor that critically analyzes business organization and critically assesses the value of capitalism as such.

Second, there has always been a sensitivity among business practitioners about the morally questionable [Page 119]aspects of work. As was noted by commentators such as Jacques in 1996 and Carrol in 1999, debates about the right moral conduct of business people and their organizations have always been popular. Much older than business ethics are, for example, discussions about corporate social responsibility, business philanthropy, or leadership humility. In this sense, business ethics can be seen as an academic continuation of what was already a current in society.

Third, given the widespread misgivings about the nature of business, business ethics has also been invented by both practitioners and academics as a way to appease or at least to canalize the most sordid forms of criticism. As such it has always been viewed as a means to help businesses not only in terms of a better moral performance but also in terms of a better economic performance. This explains, for example, why there is a vast literature in the field addressing the commensurateness of economy and morality. The relationship between the new academic field and the world of business has always oscillated somewhere between critique and complicity.

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