Deep Ecology, Business Ethics and Personal Responsibility
Selected Papers (1988 – 2020)
Summary
The author’s broad professional background and humanistic worldview are reflected in his application of psychological and virtue-oriented theories as well as philosophical approaches. Some of the articles have an essay format, others share his experiences and experiments in his ethics classes using roleplays to cultivate empathic and prudent ethical behaviour.
A primary motivation of the book is to inspire leaders as well as teachers and students of leadership and business by enriching their worldviews to see ethics as a fundamental aspect at all levels of economic activity.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- List of Figures/Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Part I
- A Conflict Case Approach to Business Ethics (Johannes Brinkmann and Knut J. Ims)
- Good Intentions Aside: Drafting a Functionalist Look at Codes of Ethics (Johannes Brinkmann and Knut J. Ims)
- Cooperation and Competition in the Context of Organic and Mechanic Worldviews: A Theoretical and Case-Based Discussion (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Consumerism and Frugality: Contradictory Principles in Economics? (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Holistic Problem Solving (Knut J. Ims and Laszlo Zsolnai)
- Competition or Cooperation? A Required Shift in the Metaphysics of Economics (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Self-Realization in Business: Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (Knut J. Ims and Laszlo Zsolnai)
- How Economic Incentives Destroy Social, Ecological, and Existential Values: The Case of Executive Compensation (Knut J. Ims, Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen, AND LASZLO ZSOLNAI)
- Product as Process: Commodities in Mechanic and Organic Ontology (Knut J. Ims, Ove D. Jakobsen, AND Laszlo Zsolnai)
- The Future of Business Ethics: A Structured Dialogue Between the Participants (Knut J. Ims and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen)
- Social Innovation and Social Development in Latin America, Egypt, and India (Knut J. Ims and Laszlo Zsolnai)
- Land Ethics in the Context of Economics and Commercialization Effects (Knut J. Ims)
- Caring Entrepreneurship and Ecological Conscience: The Case of Patagonia Inc. (Knut J. Ims)
- The Computer and Science as Bearers of Culture: From Intuition to Calculation (Knut J. Ims)
- Mismeetings: An Essay about Money, Urban Life, and the Ethics of Proximity (Knut J. Ims)
- Part II
- Shallow Success and Deep Failure (Knut J. Ims and Laszlo Zsolnai)
- Deep Ecology (Knut J. Ims)
- Deep Authenticity: An Essential Phenomenon in the Web of Life (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Deep Ecology and Personal Responsibility (Knut J. Ims)
- Peace in an Organic Worldview (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Happiness and Human Flourishing (Knut J. Ims)
- Quality of Life (Knut J. Ims and Ove D. Jakobsen)
- Quality of Life in a Deep Ecological Perspective: The Need for a Transformation of the Western Mindset? (Knut J. Ims)
- Nature, Economics and Scream (Knut J. Ims)
- Deep Ecology and Its Relevance to Gross National Happiness and Bhutan (Knut J. Ims)
- Part III
- Learning Ethics in a Social Context: A Practical Guide Using Experiential Learning Theory (Knut J. ims and Judith A. White)
- The Consultant-Client Relationship: Personal Autonomy and Development Through Dialogue (Knut J. Ims)
- Community in the Classroom: The Philosophy and Practice Behind a Course in Ethical Action (Knut J. Ims AND MORTEN HUSE)
- Dialogue-Based Problem Solving: A Discussion Based on Experience from Teamwork among Ethics Students (Knut J. Ims, Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen, and Maria Prestmo)
- Faculty Members’ Attitudes Towards Ethics at Norwegian Business Schools: An Explorative Study (Ove D. Jakobsen, Knut J. Ims, and Kjell Grønhaug)
- “Take It Personally” (Knut J. Ims)
- From the Art of Reading to the Art of Leading: An Aristotelian Argument for Why Leaders Should Read Literature (Knut J. Ims and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen)
- Personal Responsibility and Ethical Action (Knut J. Ims and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen)
- Personal Responsibility for the Greater Good (Knut J. Ims and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen)
- The Importance of Calling in Realization of Life Projects: The Case of Maverick and Serial-Entrepreneur Hans Nielsen Hauge with Implications for Business Education (Knut J. Ims, Truls Liland, and Magne Supphellen)
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
- Series Index
Figures/Tables
A Conflict Case Approach to Business Ethics
Table 1.A comparison of moral versus non-moral conflict
Table 2.A comparison of morality and ethics
Figure 2.Solving conflicts as problems.
Figure 3.Kriesberg’s conflict management style types (2003, p. 111).
Figure 4.Galtung’s conflict outcome typology.
Figure 5.Thomas’ conflict management style typology.
Figure 6.Revised and extended from Jonsen and Toulmin, 1988, p. 35.
Good Intentions Aside: Drafting a Functionalist Look at Codes of Ethics
Table 1.Three different ethical code types with examples
Table 2.Six main functions of ethical codes
Table 3.Conditions which determine code (dys)functions
Table 4.Target population votes on arguments in favor of codes
Table 5.Moral climate and code acceptance
Figure 1.Codes as functional equivalents, that is one tool among many.
←xi | xii→Cooperation and Competition in the Context of Organic and Mechanic Worldviews: A Theoretical and Case-Based Discussion
Table 1.Mechanic versus organic worldview
Table 2.Principles of coordination, in the context of different worldviews
Table 3.Dimensions of analyses
Figure 1.The organization of Max Havelaar’s national initiatives.
Consumerism and Frugality: Contradictory Principles in Economics?
Table 1.Worldview and attitudes to consumption
Competition or Cooperation? A Required Shift in the Metaphysics of Economics
Table 1.Metaphysical assumptions
Social Innovation and Social Development in Latin America, Egypt, and India
Table 1.Main characteristics of alternative social innovation cases
Shallow Success and Deep Failure
Figure 1.Four perspectives on any problem. Source: Mitroff (1998).
Deep Ecology
Table 1.Four types of societies
←xii | xiii→Deep Authenticity: An Essential Phenomenon in the Web of Life
Table 1.Mechanic and organic worldviews
Table 2.Principles of coordination, in the context of different worldviews
Table 3.Reflected self-understanding (inspired by Schumacher, 1977)
Table 4.Shallow and deep authenticity
Deep Ecology and Personal Responsibility
Table 1.Four levels of questioning and articulation
Figure 1.The hierarchy of ecosophy, economy, and ecology.
Peace in an Organic Worldview
Table 1.Shallow and deep authenticity
Table 2.Some of our major concepts dichotomized for the sake of analysis
Nature, Economics and Scream
Figure 1.Scream by Edvard Munch (with permission from The Munch Museum in Oslo, cf. Endnote 1).
Deep Ecology and Its Relevance to Gross National Happiness and Bhutan
Figure 1.Four levels of questioning and articulation.
←xiii | xiv→Learning Ethics in a Social Context: A Practical Guide Using Experiential Learning Theory
Figure 1.The experiential learning cycle inspired by Kolb, Rubin and Osland (1992).
The Consultant-Client Relationship: Personal Autonomy and Development Through Dialogue
Table 1.Steps to reach value clarification.
Figure 1.Consultant and client in a pseudo dialogical state.
Figure 2.Consultant and client in a dialogical state.
Figure 3.Central attitudes and actions between the dialogue partners.
Sentence 1.The traditional relationship between a resource, consultant, and client.
Sentence 2.The client and consultant as reflecting and exploring partners.
Faculty Members’ Attitudes Towards Ethics at Norwegian Business Schools: An Explorative Study
Table 1.Expressed agreement (percentage, mean, and standard deviation)
Table 2.Underlining dimensions
Figure 1.Faculty members attitudes – classifications.
Figure 2.Economic paradigm and ethical attitudes.
“Take It Personally”
Table 1.Eichmann versus the whistleblowers
Table 2.A dialectic concept of responsibility
Figure 1.The responsibility triangle.
←xiv | xv→Personal Responsibility and Ethical Action
Figure 1.The triangle of responsibility. Source: Ims (2006).
Figure 2.The triangle of professional ethics.
Personal Responsibility for the Greater Good
Table 1.A dialectic between moral authorship and accountability
Figure 1.The triangle of responsibility. Source: Ims (2006).
Preface
The intention of this volume is to present selected works from almost forty years as a scholar with the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) as a basecamp. Two undercurrents run like a red line through the selected articles: the concern for deep ecology and personal responsibility. Even if these seemingly are two different substantive areas, the reader might discover a certain unity among the different works manifested as business ethics, ecology, and the challenges related to business ethics as a teaching subject, in line with a gestalt-oriented view that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I hope this single work will demonstrate that business ethics, deep ecology, caring for students, and personal responsibility are not independent of each other, rather the contrary. When we dig into deep ecology, we find that personal responsibility is a necessary condition. One argument for making a single volume of works that are published in different journals and many books via different publishers is that readers may discover new and surprising patterns and connect the different elements in new ways. The aspiration of the selected structure of the volume is that the reader might gain new insights. The usual scholarly way of writing is to focus on different parts. But challenged by deep ecological thinking, we should not stop our reasoning with the study of single parts, but see the different elements as part of a habitat. This requires a shift in mindset and opening up to an “eco-self.” The unit of survival is not organism alone, but organism plus environment. To sum up, deep ecology is both a philosophical approach and a campaigning platform. It is a process of reflection that should lead to action. The element of personal responsibility is essential in deep ecology. Any alternative personal worldview is called an ecosophy; that is, a philosophy of ecological harmony. This kind of Sophia or wisdom is openly normative and contains policy wisdom, prescription, and hypothesis. Each deep ecologist has a personal responsibility to work out his/her own ecosophy. Mine is as follows.
←xvii | xviii→Why is deep ecological thinking so urgent today? The environmental challenges are unprecedented in the history of this planet. Life on Earth faces the greatest mass extinction since the end of the dinosaur age sixty-five million years ago. Hundreds of species a day are becoming extinct, and air, water, and soil, the natural resources that sustain life on this planet, are being polluted or depleted at alarming rates. The world’s wilderness areas – mountains, forests, wetlands and grasslands – are being “developed” – paved, drained, burned, overgrazed, and exploited. My main assumption is that this is a man-made disaster, with the man-made greenhouse effect threatening the atmosphere and the climate of the planet itself.
The very notion deep ecology as a philosophical approach builds upon the belief that the current environmental crisis can be traced to deep philosophical causes. The cure for the crisis must, therefore, involve a radical change in our philosophical outlook, including both personal and cultural transformations, which will affect basic economic and ideological structures. The problem has been characterized as “the denial of nature” by philosophers. We have an illusory belief that we can live independent of nature and that there are no limits to the resources that humans need now or in the future.
The fundamental wisdom in deep ecology is that humans need nonhuman nature to fully develop, and that nature has intrinsic value. We should fear that our technological world becomes the second nature, which would drastically reduce the richness of the human experiences. We debase ourselves by debasing outer nature. As one of the strong promoters of deep ecology, Arne Næss writes: “If we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves.”
There are more challenges that should be mentioned where deep ecology strongly confronts mainstream thinking. Our western worldview was developed at a time of disengagement from the world (Ims, 1988; Vetlesen, 2015). The new enlightenment paradigm was thinking about the world and knowing about the world, thereby invalidating unreflective experiences. As Vetlesen (2015) writes, the paradigm we are ingrained in has created a monological, autistic kind of being where we consult our theories rather than turn our attention to the world. The first hand “unbefangen” has no prestige. Abstraction becomes the principal tool of enlightenment. Sensuous knowledge like this tree that can be seen, touched, smelled, and ←xviii | xix→even heard when the wind blows through the branches, has been discredited. The purpose was to free our minds from superstition to give the method and procedures primacy over objects, form over content, and emphasize the general over the particular (Vetlesen, 2015, pp. 56–57).
Deep ecological thinking challenges this way of looking at the world with its emphasis on spontaneous experiences and gestalt thinking (Ims, 2018). Deep ecological thinking assumes a relational, total-field perspective and rejects the “man-in-environment image”, and has important similarities with a feminine perspective in the tradition in Gilligan (1977). Gilligan underscores a relational self, the value of personal experiences, emotion, and cooperation, and a non-violent approach. Gilligan’s view challenges traditional “masculine-oriented” ways of teaching ethics, which led me to experiment with role-play in the teaching of ethics for business students. Finally, the grand hope is that the harm and violence toward nature and society that today’s mainstream global business represents is challenged and inspired by deep ecological thinking. We need to minimize the harm and violence to save the Earth from human destruction and avoid committing ecocide (Zsolnai, 2021).
The structure of the book
Part I consists of topics related to business ethics. It starts with two articles that scrutinize ethical guidelines as a frequently used tool to discipline business practice, followed by a presentation of works on the need to ground mainstream economics in an organic worldview. The article “competition or cooperation in a mechanic or organic worldview” is followed up by several works on the urgent need to clarify the metaphysical assumptions in economics, drawing upon A. N. Whitehead’s process theory. Another article demonstrates that economic incentives might easily destroy social, ecological, and existential values. Henrik Ibsen’s character, Peer Gynt, is presented and discussed as a modern businessman with profit maximation as his leading motto, and unscrupulous conduct. The discussion problematizes self-realization in business. What is ←xix | xx→self-realization in the ultimate sense? The last work in Part I shows paradigmatic examples of business leaders and entrepreneurs who care for society as well as nature.
Part II presents articles that provide insight into the causes, nature, and potential solution to major ethical problems in contemporary business and society. Most of the articles are directly related to deep ecology and, also, positive psychology. By combining Aristotelian virtue ethics and modern positive psychology we find surprising similarities on how to facilitate human flourishing. The contributions share some fundamental features that reflect rethinking of central elements of business ethics in theory and practice, such as the need to apply a humanistic virtue-oriented perspective to economics and to search for the long lines in the history of ideas across different disciplines. The work Computer and Science as the Bearer of Culture, written in 1988, points forward and indicates the main direction in my academic journey; that is, my fascination with the existential issues of man, (ir)rationality, and science, and the leap in the human mindset from the Middle Ages to the modern and postmodern age. This shift in mindset created the preconditions for the need to protect and preserve nature as having intrinsic value; that is, the urgent need for a deep ecological approach.
My context has a western bias, even if I have been open to challenging perspectives from sources based in Eastern cultures. Laszlo Zsolnai vitalized my interests in Buddhist economics and the important similarities with a deep ecological approach. Deep ecology is an illustrative example of Eastern influence since the roots and sources of deep ecology are partially drawn from an Eastern perspective where Gandhi and Buddha are important inspiring sources. In addition, one of my favorite scholars, Aristotle, grounds his works on an organic worldview.
Part III addresses the role that alternative learning theories may play in business education. In particular, experiential learning theory inspired by David Kolb plays a decisive role in several papers. One of the articles argues that reading fiction is an essential source of leadership development. Reading high-quality literature can train and increase ethical sensitivity and augment the capacity to react to an ethical challenge. Furthermore, several works on the importance of personal responsibility in organizations are ←xx | xxi→presented. One core case used is the unethical actions of Adolph Eichmann. Even if he pretended to have been “only a cog in a big machine”, carrying out the orders of his leader, he was finally sentenced to death and held personally responsible for contributing to the Holocaust. The last article presents the fascinating story of the most important entrepreneur in Norwegian history, Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824). This story also demonstrates the dark side of a successful life project.
Acknowledgements – working in a context of friendship
In 1983 I got a tenure position at NHH. My primary obligation was to teach and do research within the field of information systems. Since then I have had the delight to interact with and learn from competent and generous colleagues and thousands of students from Norway and, over the last twenty years, also from international colleagues and students. But I should not forget my reading “and interacting with” classic philosophers. My pleasure of “dialoguing” with the texts of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle cannot be overestimated. This may be an important reason why I was invited by rector Arne Kinserdal to start my “second career” at NHH in 1988. The new responsibility was to establish a course in business ethics, and I was obligated to deal with the grand questions of life – how to do good and minimize harm? This meant to unify more fully my life with my work. Most of the articles are from the past twenty years where I have been promoting business ethics at NHH and via CEMS – The Global Alliance in Management Education. Often the chapters are written as invitations to a special conference and/or as a collaboration with colleagues who later became my personal friends. In retrospect, the most surprising finding when looking back at my context of writing is that most of the articles have been written in a genuine friendship-based, social and intellectual context.
Laszlo Zsolnai, the chairman of the ethics group in CEMS, generously included me in his comprehensive international network, his portfolio of projects and even his personal life. Laszlo’s impact on my career and my ←xxi | xxii→personal life during the past twenty years is beyond words. Laszlo is also the president of the European SPES Institute in Leuven, Belgium. In this international context I have also met new friends and colleagues: Luk Bouckaert, Rita Ghesquiere, Hendrik Opdebeeck, Carlos Hovel, and Peter Pruzan. Within CEMS I have enjoyed close collaboration with a number of new colleagues: Eleanor O’Higgins, Nel Hofstra, Zsolt Boda, Antonio Tencati, Aloi Soppe, Gabor Kovács, and Andras Ocsai.
At the same time I have the pleasure of working with my “older” Norwegian friends: Ove Jakobsen, Johannes Brinkmann, and Lars Jacob Thynes Pedersen. Lars Jacob was one of my students in the classroom. Now he is my close colleague at NHH. Those friends have stimulated my professional life and enriched my personal life immensely! I would not have been able to write the articles without their generous collaboration! I would also like to thank Maria Prestmo, Morten Huuse, Judith White, and Magne Supphellen who have made a decisive contribution to the articles in this selection. And I should not forget my elder mentors Odd Langholm and Kjell Grønhaug, who have been my teachers and colleagues for more than twenty years, and my recent colleague, Bram Timmerman. Other colleagues and friends whom I have had the privilege to interact with and learn from through formative periods in my professional life are Sten Jønson, Thomas Polesie, Richard Boland Jr, Leif Methlie, Tore Holmesland, Jonny Holbek, Johannes Brinkmann, Morten Huse, and John Fundingsrud.
I would also like to thank members of the staff at NHH who have provided necessary support and assistance in general, and for this work in particular: Elaine Pettersen, Andela Culjak, and student assistant, Synne. My student assistant Axel Bøe has done comprehensive and excellent work in formatting the book, and the head of our department, Leif Hem, has in a pleasant way supported the book project. I would also express my gratitude to Helle Snellingen and Bianca Snellingen for their highly competent translation and editing of the article Computer and Science as Bearer of Culture included in this volume. I am grateful for the generous financial support from my alma mater, the Norwegian School of Economics, for this project as well as to all the conferences and sabbatical research stays during the last forty years, which has been the foundation for my academic journey so far.
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgement is made to the collaborative authors and publishers cited below for permission to republish the following copyrighted works.
Part 1
A Conflict Case Approach to Business Ethics (Journal of Business Ethics 2004 53(1–2)). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Johannes Brinkmann.
Good Intentions Aside: Drafting a Functionalist Look at Codes of Ethics (Business Ethics. A European Review 2004 12(3)). Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the co-author Johannes Brinkmann.
Cooperation and Competition in the Context of Organic and Mechanic Worldviews: A Theoretical and Case-Based Discussion (Journal of Business Ethics 2006 66(1): pp. 19–32). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Ove D. Jakobsen.
Consumerism and Frugality: Contradictory Principles in Economics? (In L. Bouckaert, H. Opdebeeck and L. Zsolnai (eds) Frugality: Rebalancing Material and Spiritual Values in Economic Life. Peter Lang Publishing, Oxford, 2008). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Ove D. Jakobsen.
Holistic Problem Solving (In Laszlo Zsolnai and Antonio Tencati (eds) The Future International Manager: A Vision of the Roles and Duties of Management. Palgrave, 2009). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Laszlo Zsolnai.
Competition or Cooperation? A Required Shift in the Metaphysics of Economics (In Antonio Tencati and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) The Collaborative Enterprise: Creating Values for a Sustainable World. Peter Lang Academic ←xxiii | xxiv→Publishers, Oxford 2010). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author Ove D. Jakobsen.
Self-Realization in Business: Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (In Rita Guesquiere and Knut J. Ims (eds) Heroes and Anti-heroes. European Literature and the Ethics of Leadership. Garant, 2010.). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Laszlo Zsolnai.
How Economic Incentives Destroy Social, Ecological, and Existential Values: The Case of Executive Compensation (Journal of Business Ethics, August 2014 123(2): pp. 353–360). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-authors, Lars Jacob Thynes Pedersen and Laszlo Zsolnai.
Product as Process: Commodities in Mechanic and Organic Ontology (Ecological Economics February 2015 110: pp. 11–14). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-authors Ove D. Jakobsen and Laszlo Zsolnai.
The Future of Business Ethics: A Structured Dialogue Between the Participants (In Knut J. Ims, and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen (eds) Business and the Greater Good. Rethinking Business Ethics in an Age of Crisis. Edward Elgar, 2015). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author Lars Jacob Thynes Pedersen.
Social Innovation and Social Development in Latin America, Egypt, and India (In Georges Enderle and Patrick E. Murphy (eds) Ethical Innovation in Business and the Economy. Edward Elgar, 2015). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Laszlo Zsolnai.
Land Ethics in the Context of Economics and Commercialization Effects. Paper presented on the 14th GCGI International Conference and the Fourth GCGI and SES Joint Conference, “OUR SACRED EARTH: Spiritual Ecology, Values-led Economics, Education and Society Responding to Ecological Crisis”, Lucca, Tuscany August 28 – September 1, 2018. The paper was sent to the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI) in the UK, but has not yet been published in their journal.
Caring Entrepreneurship and Ecological Conscience: The Case of Patagonia Inc. (In Ora Setter and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) Caring Management in the New Economy – Socially Responsible Behaviour Through Spirituality. Palgrave, London, 2019). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Part 2
Man, Machines and Science. From Intuition to Calculation. (Translated from “Datamaskin og vitenskap som kulturbærere” (In Tore B. Holmesland and Knut J. Ims (eds) Bedriftsøkonomiens helhet. Spenning mellom analyse og humaniora. Festskrift til Odd Langholm, Alma Mater Forlag AS, 1988)). Reprinted by permission of the rights holder, Fagbokforlaget, Bergen, Norway.
Mismeetings. An Essay about Money, Urban Life, and the Ethics of Proximity (In Tore B. Holmesland, Knut J. Ims and Ansgar Pedersen (eds) Essays in Marketing and Management. A Festschrift in Honour of Kjell Grønhaug. Fagbokforlaget, 1995). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Shallow Success and Deep Failure (In Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut J. Ims (eds) Business within Limits: Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics. Peter Lang, Oxford, 2006). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author Laszlo Zsolnai.
Deep Ecology (In Luk Bouckaert and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Spirituality and Business. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Deep Authenticity: An Essential Phenomenon in the Web of Life (In Antonio Tencati and F. Perrini (eds) Business Ethics and Corporate Sustainability. Edward Elgar, MA, 2011). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Ove D. Jakobsen.
Deep Ecology and Personal Responsibility (In Laszlo Zsolnai (ed.) The Spiritual Dimension of Business Ethics and Sustainability Management. Springer, 2015). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Peace in an Organic Worldview (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Developement, Vol. 24, 2015). (In Luk Bouckaert and Manas Chatterji (eds) Business, Ethics and Peace, 2015). Emerald Group. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Ove D. Jakobsen.
Happiness and Human Flourishing (In Peter Rona and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) Economics as a Moral Science. Springer, 2017). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
←xxv | xxvi→Quality of Life (In Ove Jakobsen and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) Integral Ecology and Sustainable Business. Emerald, 2017). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author Ove D. Jakobsen.
Quality of Life in a Deep Ecological Perspective. The Need for a Transformation of the Western Mindset? (Society and Economy, 2018 40(4): pp. 531–552). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Nature, Economics and Scream (In Luk Bouckaert, Knut J. Ims, and Peter Rona (eds) Art, Spirituality and Economics. 2018). © Springer International Publishing AG 2018; all rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Deep Ecology and Its Relevance to GNH and Bhutan (In Dasho Karma Ura and Dorji Penjore (eds) GNH. From Philosophy to Praxis. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Gross National Happiness, November 4–6, 2015, Paro, Bhutan. Center for Bhutan Studies & GNH, 2017). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Part 3
Learning Ethics in a Social Context: A Practical Guide Using Experiential Learning Theory (Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society 1993 4: pp. 725–735). Permission from the publisher and the co-author, Judith A. White.
The Consultant-Client Relationship: Personal Autonomy and Development Through Dialogue (In Heidi Von Weltzien Hoivik and Andreas Føllesdal (eds) Ethics and Consutancy: European Perspectives. Kluwer, 1995). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Community in the Classroom: The Philosophy and Practice Behind a Course in Ethical Action (Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society 1998 9: pp. 1077–1088). Permission from the publisher and the co-author, Morten Huse.
Dialogue-Based Problem Solving: A Discussion Based on Teamwork Among Ethics Students (In Willy Haukedal and Bård Kuvaas (eds) Creativity and Problem-Solving in the Context of Business Management. Bergen ←xxvi | xxvii→Fagbokforlaget, 2004). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-authors, Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen and Maria Prestmo.
Faculty Members’ Attitudes Towards Ethics at Norwegian Business Schools: An Explorative Study (Journal of Business Ethics 2005 62: pp. 299–314. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-authors, Ove D. Jakobsen and Kjell Grønhaug.
Take it Personally (In Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut J. Ims (eds) Business within Limits: Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics. Peter Lang, Oxford, 2006). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
From the Art of Reading to the Art of Leading (In Hendrik Opdebeeck and Laszlo Zsolnai (eds) Spiritual Humanism and Economic Wisdom. Garant, Antwerpen and Apeldoom, 2011). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen.
Personal Responsibility and Ethical Action (In Laszlo Zsolnai (ed.) Handbook of Business Ethics – Ethics in the New Economy. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, Oxford, 2013). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen.
Personal Responsibility for the Greater Good (In Knut J. Ims and Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen (eds) Business and the Greater Good. Rethinking Business Ethics in an Age of Crisis. Edward Elgar, 2015). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-author, Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen.
The Importance of Calling in Realization of Life Projects: The Case of Maverick and Serial-Entrepreneur Hans Nielsen Hauge with Implications for Business Education (In Luk Bouckaert and S. van den Heuvel (eds) Servant Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and the Will to Serve. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.). Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the co-authors, Magne Supphellen and Truls Liland.
Johannes Brinkmann and Knut J. Ims
A Conflict Case Approach to Business Ethics
Introduction
Business ethics as an academic field has two main functions. On the one hand it challenges self-satisfied business people by inviting moral criticism and self-criticism of business practices. On the other hand business ethics is potentially helpful when it comes to analyzing, handling, and preventing conflict in business contexts, with a focus on moral aspects (cf. as drafts of such a perspective French and Allbright, 1998, pp. 177–178, with further references, or Brinkmann, 2002b, pp. 161–162). This paper suggests taking a better look at such a potential conflict management function of business ethics.
The use of moral conflict cases in business ethics teaching and research
Moral conflict cases are the most popular way of teaching business ethics, consisting of more or less complex and authentic conflicts without an easy self-evident solution. Business ethics casebooks are readers of business life, of conflict histories, and issues (see for example Beauchamp, 1997; Donaldson and Gini, 1995; Harvey et al., 1994; Hoffman et al., 2001; Jennings, 2002). While full-format cases are meant as representatives of real-life conflict complexity, teaching sometimes (and research normally) uses less representative and more focused short versions of conflict ←3 | 4→cases, often called “scenarios” or “vignettes” (see for example Bain, 1994; Brinkmann, 2002a; Chonko, 1995; Peck et al., 1994; Weber, 1992). Such conflicts or dilemmas, short ones or long ones, real ones or constructed ones, are normally designed as a hopeless choice between contradictory responsibilities where at least one stakeholder will be hurt. The follow-up question is usually in the format of “what would you do if you were person X?” or “which conflict party would you side with, and how would you justify your choice?” or “identify and clarify main issues, parties and stakeholders, options and wisest solutions”.
Cases and case teaching market ethics as useful tools for analyzing and handling understandable and interesting moral conflict stories trigger standpoint taking and discussion. There is a danger, however, that cases can be “too” entertaining and too superficial as a genre. Students and even teachers or researchers can easily forget that moral conflict cases are examples; that is, are not about themselves or interesting in themselves only.1 The challenge is to reach a compromise between respect for uniqueness and desirable generalizability. On one hand one needs to be loyal to the single case (in the classroom or in the real business world); that is, to come up with a best possible (or at least good enough) solution. On the other hand the question is what one can learn from this one case for more or less similar cases, learn about the potential relevance of moral philosophy, and learn about moral conflict management in general.
More complex checklists for moral conflict case analyses, such as the seven-point list suggested by van Luijk (1994, pp. 8–9) or the twelve-point list suggested by Nash (1989, p. 246), have a common denominator. They all require a combined analysis of facts and of norms, or a situation and normative analysis. Instead of a focus on practical suggestions and rules of thumb for case teaching and conflict-case question formats we want to address, more principally, the possible strengths and weaknesses of a moral conflict case focus. Our draft of a further elaboration of a moral conflict focus borrows from social science and from philosophy. By social science we think mainly of conflict research terminology. Our philosophical elaboration exploits primarily casuistry as a kind of practical, inductive argumentation with a focus on paradigmatic examples.
Moral conflict case analysis as conflict analysis
In order to prevent case teaching and case research from being too quick and too superficial, a delayed judgment approach seems fruitful (Lustig and Koester, 1996, pp. 333–336, suggest in their textbook an acronym, a “D-I-E”-approach). Instead of jumping from a quick case description to a quick recommendation for how to handle the case, Lustig and Koester suggest asking for a sufficient description (“D”) and understanding (interpretation, “I”); that is, for a deliberately delayed judgment (evaluation, “E”). Description and understanding require relevant and useful concepts, either as a language in which one can describe and understand conflict cases as stories (cf. van Luijk, 1994, pp. 4–5) or for asking individuals questions and understanding their answers about such conflict situations. Since there is a risk of over-representing big cases with media attention one can often defend a further detour and delay by asking individuals questions about their conflict perceptions before describing cases as a whole.
When mapping individual conflict experience in professional or business contexts one would probably ask individuals, in an open question, for any conflict definitions and/or conflict examples. Perhaps one would ask, in addition, questions about individual conflict handling experiences and ideas. Most respondents would probably understand such a question in one of the following formats:
Details
- Pages
- XXVIII, 812
- Year
- 2022
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781800792302
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781800792319
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9781800792326
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781800792296
- DOI
- 10.3726/b18037
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2022 (March)
- Keywords
- Ethics Business Education Deep Ecology, Business Ethics and Personal Responsibility Knut J. Ims
- Published
- Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2022. XXVIII, 812 pp., 22 fig. b/w, 28 tables.
