A Strategic and Tactical Approach to Global Business Ethics, Second Edition

CHAPTER 5

Time for a Change?

Time-out

Neither do men put new wine in old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

—Matthew 9:17

Before moving on to explore how the global issues of ethical construct are handled by public-interest groups and the philosophical approaches to the matter, it may be advisable to call a time-out and again raise some underlying issues and fundamental questions. How does the sometimes fickle cycle of public opinion, which needs to be periodically awakened by disclosure of questionable practices of firms, impact the need for global enterprises to embrace an ethical imperative in the strategic planning process? Firms ...