Mind the Gap! The Challenges and Limits of (Global) Business Ethics

Though this paper acknowledges the progress made in business ethics over the past several decades, it focuses on the challenges and limits of global business ethics. It maintains that business ethicists have provided important contributions regarding the Evaluative, Embodiment, and Enforcement aspec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Brenkert, George G. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2019
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 155, Issue: 4, Pages: 917-930
Further subjects:B Ethical gap
B Theory of power
B Moral Imagination
B Enactment theory
B John Gaventa
B Communicative participation
B Ethical leaders
B Moral change
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Though this paper acknowledges the progress made in business ethics over the past several decades, it focuses on the challenges and limits of global business ethics. It maintains that business ethicists have provided important contributions regarding the Evaluative, Embodiment, and Enforcement aspects of business ethics. Nevertheless, they have not sufficiently considered a fourth part of a theory of moral change, an Enactment theory, whereby the principles and values business ethicists have identified might actually be followed. Enactment theory argues that appeals to ethical leadership, moral imagination, and communicative participation have been insufficient to the task of closing the gap between what businesses do and what they ought to be doing. To address this problem, a theory of moral change focusing on the relations of power within which individuals and businesses operate needs to be developed. Drawing on the work of John Gaventa, the paper sketches some directions in which business ethics should proceed to help diminish this gap. The upshot is that business ethics needs greater connection with economic, social, and political theories. It also suggests that there are important limits to fostering the ethics of global business.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3902-6