Business Ethics After the Global Financial Crisis

1Introduction

Christopher Cowton, James Dempsey and Tom Sorell

The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 concentrated attention on the morality of banking and financial activities in general. Just as mainstream businesses became increasingly defined by their financial performance, so banks, it seemed, had got themselves—and everyone else—into trouble through an over-emphasis on themselves as commercial enterprises. Such financialisation meant that little attention was paid to traditional banking virtues or ethics.

The GFC is not the first banking crisis in history, and almost certainly it will not be the last, but its scale and geographic spread were such that not only did it provide a profound shock to the system itself and cause ...