Business Ethics

A stakeholder, risk, and governance approach

Bob Tricker and Gretchen Tricker (Routledge, 2014)

This book not only considers what business ethics are, and why they are important, but offers practical approaches on how to develop a successful corporate ethics culture.

Why study business ethics?

The past decade has seen a spate of corporate crises around the world. Enron, one of America’s largest companies, failed dramatically with some of its directors going to jail, whilst apparently fulfilling the tenets of sound corporate governance.  Despite policies on corporate social responsibility and sustainability, oil company BP lost over half its share value following the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig debacle in the Gulf of Mexico.  Many multi-national companies manoeuvre funds through tax havens to avoid taxation, yet claim to be good corporate citizens. Concerns about business ethics are widespread and serious. Questions are raised about companies’ actions despite their apparent commitment to CSR, ethics codes, and compliance reports.

Around the world, the behaviour of companies, the attitudes of their directors, and the actions of key executives have all come under the public spotlight: the world-wide collapse of auditors Arthur Andersen, fraudulent management in Australia's HIH Insurance, corruption in Italy's Parmalat, allegations of bribery against BAE Systems in Europe, the rigging of interest rates by British banks and, of course, excessive risk taking by financial institutions around the world that sparked a global economic crisis.

Such cases raise issues of business ethics. They also involve the way companies are governed, how power is exercised over them, and the way business risks are taken.

What the book is about

Many books and courses on business ethics focus on companies’ social responsibilities, their relations with their stakeholders, and corporate citizenship.  More recently, green credentials and sustainability have been added to that agenda.

This book argues that business ethics are basic to running business not a separate subject. They are inherent to the governance and management of every organization not an optional exercise in corporate citizenship. Ethics are about behaviour. Business ethics concern behaviour in business and the behaviour of business. Decisions at every level in a company have ethical implications – strategically in the board room, managerially throughout the organization, and operationally in each of its activities.

Bob Tricker