Just Business: Business Ethics in Action - Softcover

Sternberg, Dr Elaine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0999266128 ISBN 13: 9780999266120

Publisher: Phronimos Press, 2018

Synopsis

Just Business introduces conceptual clarity to business ethics, and provides systematic, jargon-free arguments for rebutting unethical demands on business. Just Business argues that business can be true to its definitive objective of maximizing long-term owner value and still be fully ethical. Combining business realism with analytical rigor, Just Business offers an Ethical Decision Model that is globally applicable, and can be used to manage businesses' ethical problems in all their real-life complexity and variety. Even more significantly, Just Business provides a powerful explanatory framework that unifies and justifies its answers.

Just Business offers detailed analyses of common concerns in business ethics and corporate governance, including 'If it's good for the business, can it really be ethical?', accountability, audits, bribery, buyouts, codes of conduct, competition, conflicts of interest, consultation, directors' responsibilities, dividends, executive pay, fairness, fiduciary responsibility, financial reporting, hiring and firing, honesty, insider trading, mixed motives, remuneration, restructuring, shareholder responsibilities, 'short-termism', takeovers, and whistle-blowing.

Unlike most books on business ethics, Just Business does not apply incoherent philosophical doctrines to misunderstood business practice. Nor is it a collection of anecdotal examples or a set of ad hoc responses to isolated questions. Rather, Just Business offers a systematic, reasoned argument about what constitutes ethical conduct for business. Just Business demonstrates that when properly understood, business ethics is not an extraneous anti-business option: it is a rigorous, analytical business tool.

Just Business's understanding of business derives from direct, practical experience of doing business in the 'real world'; its philosophical analysis is grounded in Aristotelian realism. It is intended for, and should be easily accessible to, active business stakeholders and formulators of public policy as well as academic philosophers. Now in its fourth edition, Just Business is essential reading for students of business, ethics, law, economics, and public policy, and can benefit everyone who has dealings with business, whether as employees or customers, lenders or investors, regulators or free-marketeers.

Financial Times: "...a new book on business ethics that has something valuable to say is ... a rare event ... worth celebrating.... companies would be more profitable, the gross national product higher, and standards of behaviour better in a country where every manager read Just Business and took it to heart."

Philosophical Quarterly: "Just Business is clear, readable and witty... it may become a standard text before long... deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in business ethics, whether teacher, student or business professional."

The Independent: "Just Business is closely argued, logical and well written."

Business Ethics: A European Review: "Much is gained by the book's carefully reasoned, clear approach to ethical issues."

South China Morning Post: " ...very important... clear... logical... cogent... a first-class work. ...this book should be read by the officers, managers and owners of every major corporation...

About this title

About the Author

Elaine Sternberg was born and brought up in NYC, where she graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. Having gone to London on a Fulbright Fellowship, she earned her doctorate in philosophy at the London School of Economics as Michael Oakeshott's last PhD student. After also teaching at the LSE, she left academia to complete the Chase Manhattan Bank training program. Dr Sternberg helped to establish Chase Manhattan Ltd in NYC and London, and then specialized in international corporate finance at Hill Samuel & Co. She worked next for the merchant bank of the NatWest Bank, where she helped establish County Bank's international equity broker/dealer business. She also created and ran County Securities' profitable business of underwriting and syndicating new issues of international equity, the first such operation in Britain. Dr Sternberg also established and ran the second such business in Britain, for Drexel Burnham Lambert Ltd. which head-hunted her to be its head of International Equity Syndicate. Concerned by what she saw in the firm made famous by its dominance of the junk bond market, Elaine left Drexel a year before Mike Milken was indicted for securities fraud. Her experience at Drexel supplemented what she had already learned by considering CountyNatWest's involvement in the Blue Arrow scandal. Reflecting on what was commonly deemed unethical about the conduct of those firms, Dr Sternberg was struck by how mistaken most commentators were about the nature of both business and ethics. Just Business is her analysis of what business genuinely needs to do to be ethical. Dr Sternberg has applied the analysis of Just Business as principal of Analytical Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in applying critical intelligence to solving business and organizational problems, especially those that cut across traditional professional boundaries. Analytical Solutions also designs and provides tailor-made courses on business ethics and corporate governance for businesses and academic users. The author of Corporate Governance: Accountability in the Marketplace and many other works on business ethics, corporate governance, ethics, and political philosophy, Dr Sternberg has held Visiting Scholar positions at universities in the UK and the US, and continues to be the Philosophy and Corporate Governance Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and an advisor of Public Concern at Work (the UK's "whistleblowers’ charity").

Review

Financial Times: "The arrival of a new book on business ethics that has something valuable to say is such a rare event as to be worth celebrating.... The volume in question is Just Business... Just Business explains many business issues usually shrouded in mysticism and emotive language. ...companies would be more profitable, the gross national product higher, and standards of behaviour better in a country where every manager read Just Business and took it to heart."

Management Today: ..".this is an interesting book which deals with difficult and important questions... I was won over by its intelligence and questions..."

Business Ethics: A European Review: "Much is gained by the book's carefully reasoned, clear approach to ethical issues."

Philosophical Quarterly: "Just Business is clear, readable and witty... it may become a standard text before long... deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in business ethics, whether teacher, student or business professional."

Business Executive: "This book breaks new ground in ... business ethics... providing substantive answers to basic questions..."

Company Secretary: ..".a very important book... clear and logical... cogent... a first-class work... this book should be read by the officers, managers and owners of every major corporation..."

The Independent: "Just Business is closely argued, logical and well written."

The Observer: ..".almost alarmingly trenchant... A most effective statement... which will make sense to all political sides -- though they may not be equally grateful."

South China Morning Post: " ...very important ...clear...logical...cogent... a first-class work. ...this book should be read by the officers, managers and owners of every major corporation...

Amazon.com: (5/5 stars): "We at getAbstract.com recommend this book as a seminal introduction to ethical decision making for business men and women that should be read by all and referred to often."

Edition details

• Publisher: Phronimos Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0999266128
• ISBN 13: 9780999266120
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 324