Business Ethics: Methods and Application

Ethical aspects of business and the economy are of increasing concern in business practice, higher education, and society in general. This concern results from significant business scandals and economic crises, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and the following great recession, as well as from pressing current and future challenges for the economy, such as sustainability and globalization. As a result, there is a growing demand for normative analysis and orientation for business and the economy, where business ethics has become a crucial part of organizational management, risk management, branding, and strategic management.

Business Ethics: Methods and Application provides a new systematic approach to normative business ethics that covers the complex and various ethical challenges of modern business. It aims to train analytical thinking skills in the field of business ethics and to approach ethical issues in business in a rational and systematic way. The book develops a number of specific methods for business ethics analysis that are tailored for ethical decision-making in business and for analyzing complex ethical topics in business.

The book discusses fundamental ethical questions regarding the meaning of business and the economy for the individual person, society, the environment, and people around the world. As a result, Business Ethics: Methods and Application develops normative guidelines for business in the 21st century and its fundamental challenges and will be key reading for undergraduate, postgraduate, and MBA students of business ethics, business strategy, business and society, and related fields.

Christian U. Becker lives with his family in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, and is a faculty member at the College of Business at Colorado State University. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Heidelberg University (2003) and his Habilitation in philosophy from Kaiserslautern University (2010). His primary research and teaching interests are in theoretical and applied ethics, the history of economic thought, and sustainability studies. He has taught business ethics for more than ten years in Germany, Canada, and the United States. Becker has published on ethical and economic topics in various journals, such as Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy; Ecological Economics; Ethical Theory and Moral Practice; Ethics, Policy and Environment; Environmental Values; and European Journal for the History of Economic Thought.