Ethical Hazards: A Motive, Means, and Opportunity Approach to Curbing Corporate Unethical Behavior

Scandals in companies such as Enron have been a source of great concern in the last decade. The events that led to a global financial crisis in 2008 have heightened this concern. How does one account for executive behaviors that led to such a crisis? This article argues that a conjunction of motive,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pendse, Shripad G. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2012
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2012, Volume: 107, Issue: 3, Pages: 265-279
Further subjects:B Financial Crisis
B Incentives
B Ethical hazards
B corporate ethics
B corporate scandals
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Summary:Scandals in companies such as Enron have been a source of great concern in the last decade. The events that led to a global financial crisis in 2008 have heightened this concern. How does one account for executive behaviors that led to such a crisis? This article argues that a conjunction of motive, means, and opportunity creates ‘an ethical hazard’ making questionable executive decisions more probable. It then suggests that corporate unethical behavior can be minimized by creating a process to identify and remove such ethical hazards, and by appointing an ‘ethical hazards marshal.’
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-011-1037-0