a new generation of corporate ethics

Research Question/ Issue: Codes of ethics contain a set of rules of conduct and corporate principles concerning the responsibility to stakeholders and shareholders, which help guide corporate and employees’ behavior, and they constitute verifiable elements of social responsibility. Given the growing concern for social responsibility and for the relationship with external stakeholders, which has become an undeniable social demand, we think that the codes of the most respectable and admired companies should reflect this trend. This study looks into the Most Admired Companies of the World ranked by Fortune magazine in 2009 to find out if their codes of ethics exhibit greater emphasis on social responsibility and strong implementation processes, and whether they could be considered codes of the third generation. Stohl et al. (2009) suggest that the codes of ethics of the most advanced companies should evolve to the “third generation ethics”, which focuses on the long-term perspective and on the global, social and environmental aspects of corporate responsibility sensibility. Research Findings/Insight: Our results show that the codes of ethics of the 2009 Most Admired Companies of the World resemble “codes of conduct” rather than strictly codes of ethics or “codes of corporate social responsibility”. They are still governed by traditional norms related to immediate economic success, normative compliance, internal management and the pressing effects of their sector. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study provides empirical support for the idea that the philosophy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is scarcely present in the codes of the most reputable companies.

Business and Politics, 2012

Codes of ethics contain a set of rules of conduct and corporate principles concerning the responsibility of a company to its stakeholders and shareholders. These codes help to guide corporate and employee behavior, and constitute verifiable elements of social responsibility. This study examines the Most Admired Companies of the World, ranked by Fortune magazine in 2009 to find out, first, whether their codes of ethics exhibit greater emphasis on social responsibility and strong implementation processes, and second, whether they could be considered codes of the third generation as elaborated by Stohl et al. in their article in the Journal of Business Ethics. Our results indicate that the codes of ethics of the 2009 Most Admired Companies of the World resemble “codes of conduct” rather than strictly codes of ethics or “codes of corporate social responsibility”. These codes continue to be governed by traditional norms related to immediate economic success, normative compliance, interna...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore emerging trends in the content of codes of ethics of US Fortune 100 and Global 100 corporate web sites through a longitudinal study. Design/methodology/approach – The web sites of the 200 companies were surfed and the relevant documents of the codes of ethics were extracted to separate text files. The computer files were then mined using the customized developed software and each ethical keyword was counted. The number of filed codes of ethics was 95 for both the 100 US‐based and the 100 Global‐based companies. Findings – In addition to the content analysis of the ethic codes of the studied groups and finding high‐frequency ethical keywords, the results of this study indicate a convergence of the contents. Moreover, the results also show that the ethical codes are now more readily available on corporations’ web sites; that is a sign of higher level of disclosure of ethical codes compared to that in 2006. Finally, this research proposes some hypotheses to explain the changes from 2006 to 2009. Practical implications – Many smaller corporations and start‐up companies can benefit from the results of this study by comparing their codes of ethics with those of the major US and global companies, using key ethical phrases that are discussed here. Moreover, US companies wanting to establish new subsidiaries in other countries can also take advantage of the results of this study. They can find out what are the common dissimilarities between American corporates and other international firms, from ethical point of view, when they want to reach a uniform code of ethics. Social implications – Longitudinal study of the content of codes of ethics can help in encouraging firms to give consideration to ethical issues. This research is the first attempt to study the ethical standards adopted by the major US and global corporations, before and after the global financial crisis. Originality/value – This study analyses the content of codes of ethics of the world's top firms and compares Fortune 500 and global 500 companies, considering the frequency of ethical keywords on their codes. It also compares the similarities and differences and indicates whether the content is divergent or convergent. The study also shows how the disclosure of codes of ethics has changed in the time‐span of research.

The business ethics that we talk of in relation to companies contain the same issues as the ethics in the socioeconomic context to which they relate. The aspirations and ethical levels of companies operating in certain countries differ principally from those of companies operating in others, where the concerns for environment, social welfare, human rights, co-operation,etc. are quite different. The new globalized, networked economy - based on the coordinated management of knowledge, sets evolutionary trends in motion that raise the levels of ethical compulsions.

The paper addresses the concepts of business ethics and corporate social responsibility in the old vis-à-vis the new economy. The effects of globalization and its impact on the transition from the industrial to the digital era are explored. Although the behaviour of business organizations has always had a thoughtful worldwide impact, with the turn down of the nation state economic power has, for the first time, tough political power. Simultaneously, the undergoing revolution in contemporary information and communication technologies has significantly empowered the customer. Responding to better customer awareness and sensitivity to business and social responsibility issues -coupled with consumers' increasing ability to react- companies in the digital age may be expected to develop even stronger cultures of corporate social responsibility, proactively seeking to increasingly honour their moral obligations to society in the 21st century In recent years, due to the globalization of markets and production processes, an ever increasing number of marketers and entrepreneur and business manager have to deal with ethics and social responsibility issues in cross-cultural settings. In this article, main approaches in marketing ethics and social responsibility have been reviewed for ethical analysis and business manager in international settings. The main purpose of the study is to present some guidelines that can serve as a guide for global marketers in the important areas for markets ethics and social responsibility. It is supposed to assist marketers in their efforts to behave in an ethical fashion. It is assumed that local conditions of markets may be different, but some global markets, ethics and social responsibility principles should be applicable to all markets. It is proposed that a uniform code of ethics and social responsibility should be created by WTO and UN organizations to solve diverse culturaldifferences to arrive at cooperative strategies in markets. Keywords: Globalization, Ethics, Marketing Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility. : Business ethics, and international business ethics., e-Economy.

Indian Journal of Applied Research, 2011

The paper addresses the concepts of business ethics and corporate social responsibility in the old vis-à-vis the new economy. The effects of globalization and its impact on the transition from the industrial to the digital era are explored. Although the behaviour of business organizations has always had a profound worldwide impact, with the decline of the nation state economic power has, for the first time, eroded political power. Simultaneously, the undergoing revolution in contemporary information and communication technologies has significantly empowered the customer. Responding to enhanced customer awareness and sensitivity to business and social responsibility issues -coupled with consumers' increasing ability to react-companies in the digital age may be expected to develop even stronger cultures of corporate social responsibility, proactively seeking to increasingly honour their moral obligations to society in the 21st century.

Futures, 2005

Journal of Business Ethics, 2018

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.

Ethics requires freedom of action, is transversal to our activity, has a universal character, is innate and represents an absolute value. For all these reasons, it is imperative to train the managers of our society so that they do not engage in ethically objectionable behaviors, such as those that have been occurring in the countless corporate scandals of today. Therefore, the objective of this article is to research, through systematic review, the correlation between professional ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR). For this, bibliometric analysis was performed, based on a systematic search in the Scopus database. As a result, the authors propose a new concept, that of integrative responsibility, designed to ascertain the social responsibility of companies within and outside organizations.

Emphasizing that ethical responsibilities of a business, is actually addressing sustainable development in all three dimensions: economic, ecological and social. The question of sustainability of business is well answered by the concept of Sustainable Development (SD), where the SD framework gives a new direction to the way Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was previously comprehended. In this paper, we have tried to show why in this case the framework of sustainability and sustainable development would be a more appropriate choice. The concept of sustainability, originally developed in environmental ethics and associated with the concept of sustainable development (SD), is gaining attention. This study tends to capture the CSR evolution through a vivid literature survey and find the essence at every decade till the recent past. The next phase of the study discussed the limitations of the CSR approach, the importance of sustainability in business and introduces sustainable devel...