Alfred A. Marcus - Managing Business Ethics: Making Ethical Decisions

The Hallmark Features

A complete learning package

Managing Business Ethics: Making Ethical Decisions teaches students how to navigate ethical issues they will encounter, using an ethical decision-making framework applied throughout the book.

A weight-of-reasons ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK helps students understand the steps for making the right decisions and the importance of thinking through both short-term and long-term effects.

CASE APPLICATIONS give students an opportunity to apply the weight-of-reasons framework to ethical dilemmas.

Twenty REAL-WORLD CASES on timely topics are included, such as sexual harassment at Google, pharmaceutical companies and the opioid epidemic, and Whole Foodss conscious capitalism.

Unique chapter on THINKING, FAST AND SLOW explores behavioral fi ndings on how people make ethical decisions.

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Making Ethical Decisions

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Marcus, Alfred A. (Alfred Allen), 1950- author. | Hargrave, Timothy J., author.

Title: Managing Business Ethics: Making Ethical Decisions / Alfred A. Marcus, University of Minnesota, Timothy J. Hargrave, Central Washington University.

Description: Los Angeles: SAGE [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019034547 | ISBN 978-1-5063-8859-5 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-5063-8857-1 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-5063-8858-8 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-5063-8860-1 (pdf) | ISBN 978-1-5063-8861-8 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Business ethics.

Classification: LCC HF5387 .M3455 2021 | DDC 174/.4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034547

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Are business school ethics courses and the textbooks they use effective? Do they help prepare business school students to make tough ethical decisions? While most business schools today have a commitment to ethics across all levels of the curriculum, many commentators have their doubts about business ethics courses. Business schools have been assigned some of the blame for the wave of ethics scandals that took place in the early 2000s, the dubious activities of financial firms that contributed to the Great Recession several years later, and more recent instances of corporate wrongdoing, many of which are documented in this book.

While it has not been our experience that business schools are guilty of teaching a profit-first and perhaps even amoral and avaricious win at all costs mentality, as they have been accused of doing, we do believe that business schools as a whole are not adequately preparing students to address the complex ethical challenges they face. Too many business ethics courses and the textbooks they use tend to focus on moral philosophy; they acquaint students with philosophical frameworks for thinking about ethics and present them with ethical dilemmas similar to those they can expect to encounter in the business world. Unfortunately, though, they tend to fall short when it comes to preparing students to deeply understand and creatively respond to these dilemmas. For one, they underestimate or disregard impediments to ethical decision-making such as our mental limitations and biases, and the impact of social influences on our decisions. They tend not to account for the human predilection to obey our bosses, conform with group norms, and make fast, intuitive decisions rather than carefully apply rational decision-making frameworks. Just as they overlook the impediments to good decision-making, so too they do not give enough attention to the tools that help decision-makers to overcome these impediments. Jonathan Haidt, business ethics chair at New York Universitys Stern School, summarizes the current situation when he writes,