Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, Second Edition

ETHICAL MODELS THAT GUIDE DECISION MAKING

There are several ethical theories that have been developed by philosophers over the years. These theories offer certain benchmarks to set organizational or professional standards, and more importantly, help develop a basis for normative judgement that could transcend organizational or professional cultures. However, it must be stressed here that business theorists have not made much use of these theories that could offer models of ethical decision making. There are a couple of reasons for this: (i) ethical theories and their relevance to business research are not easily understood by business theorists; and (ii) ethical theories, being normative, are difficult to put into practice.² However, some writers ...