Ethical Issues in Business: A Philosophical Approach - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130923877 ISBN 13: 9780130923875

Publisher: Pearson College Div, 2002

Synopsis

This popular book on business ethics contains a diverse collection of readings and cases. It begins with an introduction to moral reasoning, and then provides readers with a wide range of opportunities to apply ethical theory to real contemporary managerial situations?including issues facing managers in the next century. Each section contains a case study and relevant theoretical articles that range from classics in philosophy to modern commentaries by business practitioners. Five sections cover general issues in ethics; property, profit, and justice; corporations, persons, and morality; international business; and contemporary business themes. For professionals in the business fields of accounting, finance, marketing, and more.

About this title

About the Author

MARGARET CORDING is a doctoral candidate at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, specializing in business ethics and strategy. She earned her MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Previously she worked in financial services for over 15 years, most recently as a managing director for The Chase Manhattan Bank.

THOMAS DONALDSON is the Mark O. Winkelman Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the director of the Wharton Ethics Program. From 1990 to 1996 he held the position of the John F. Connelly Professor of Business Ethics in the School of Business, Georgetown University. Professor Donaldson has written broadly in the area of business values and professional ethics including The Ties that Bind: A Social Contract Approach to Business Ethics, co-authored with Thomas W. Dunfee (Harvard University Business School Press, 1999), and Ethics in International Business (Oxford University Press, 1989).

PATRICA H. WERHANE is the Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics and senior fellow of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics in the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. She was formerly the Wirtenberger Professor of Business Ethics at Loyola University Chicago. She has been a Rockefellor Fellow at Dartmouth, Arthur Anderson Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge, and Erskine Visiting Fellow at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand). Professor Werhane has published numerous articles and is the author or editor of 13 books including Persons, Rights and Corporations, and Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism. Her latest books are Moral Imagination and Managerial Decision-Making, and Organization Ethics for Health Care (with E. Spencer, A. Mills and M. Rorty) both with Oxford University Press. She is also founder and former editor-in-chief of Business Ethics Quarterly, the journal of the Society for Business Ethics

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ethical Issues in Business was first published more than two decades ago, in 19'79. Since then the field of business ethics has grown into an academic discipline bristling with research and practical implications for managers. Textbooks and research have multiplied. In 1979, Ethical Issues in Business was one of only three textbooks in the field. Now at least 50 are available. Along with the growth of course offerings and college teaching materials, an explosion of new articles, cases, and journals has occurred. Meanwhile, outside colleges and universities, hundreds of business firms have now created positions of "corporate ethics officer," and thousands more have instituted ethics training programs for managers and employees. The seventh edition reflects these dramatic changes that the field has undergone.

Some theoretical perspectives preserve their importance over the decades. Indeed, many are foundational materials for the study of business ethics. The insights of Adam Smith and John Locke about markets and human rights, or the radical claims made by Karl Marx that capitalism affects the minds of its participants, are no less relevant today than they were in earlier centuries. You will find those perspectives included in this edition, just as in the earlier ones. Yet other issues are clearly timebound. When the last edition appeared, the hot issue of business conversation was the moral and legal obligations of U.S. tobacco companies, apparel companies' use of overseas "sweat shops," and a financial crisis in Asia.

Since the publication of the sixth edition new events have posed new ethical challenges. Since then new technology has challenged traditional views of copyright law, resulting in lawsuits between Napster and the record companies. The dramatic stock price erosion of the U.S. "dot.com" companies has coincided with a-debate over privacy and marketing issues. Ford Motor Company and Bridgestone/Firestone find themselves in a legal and public relations dilemma as a result of hundreds of deaths allegedly due to product defects. Transnational corporations continue to face thorny ethical issues as they increasingly do business in countries with significantly different value systems. Further, in the increasingly competitive commercial environment of global business, corporate leaders have been faced with new challenges in employment, corporate restructuring, and training. Readings that focus on some of the ethical issues raised by these new kinds of challenges are included in this seventh edition.

The present edition, like earlier ones, has not been simply the product of its editors, but owes greatly to those whose suggestions, criticism, and editorial assistance made it a better book. We are indebted to Prentice Hall reviewers John Mundy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Benjamin A. Petty, Southern Methodist University for their constructive comments, and we especially want to thank Nicholas Dew, Thomas Dunfee, Ronald Duska, R. Edward Freeman, Mary Hamilton, and Henry Tulloch for their helpful revision suggestions. Thanks also go to Karen Musselman and Erin Becker for their excellent organizational and editorial skills.

T.D.
P.H.W.
M.C.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson College Div
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0130923877
• ISBN 13: 9780130923875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 638
• Editor: Thomas Donaldson, Patricia H. Werhane, Margaret Cording