The Critique of Management

6 Managing for the Common Good: Towards an Integrated Principle of Business Ethics

DOI: 10.4324/9781003231875-6

While it is increasingly acknowledged that firms are not only economic institutions but also moral institutions that contribute to society at large, the starting point of philosophical questions about the ethics of business is often found in an original disconnect between business and ethics. It is either found in a theoretical disconnection between business and ethics, which makes business ethics an oxymoron (Collins, 1994), or in a practical disconnection, for example, in the case of manipulation of interest rates of banks, or manipulation of research outcomes about the negative environmental impacts of new products and services. ...