IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buetqu/v5y1995i03p577-601_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Place of Ethics in Business: Shifting Paradigms?

Author

Listed:
  • Shepard, Jon M.
  • Shepard, Jon
  • Wimbush, James C.
  • Stephens, Carroll U.

Abstract

This article uses concepts from sociology, history, and philosophy to explore the shifting relationship between moral values and business in the Western world. We examine the historical roots and intellectual underpinnings of two major business-society paradigms in ideal-type terms. In pre-industrial Western society, we argue that business activity was linked to society’s values of morality (the moral unity paradigm)—for good or for ill. With the rise of industrialism, we contend that business was freed from moral constraints by the alleged “invisible hand†of efficient markets (the amoral theory of business). Armed with this understanding of the intellectual history of the moral unity and amoral business-society paradigms, we suggest that some variant of the moral unity paradigm may be recurring in post-industrial society.

Suggested Citation

  • Shepard, Jon M. & Shepard, Jon & Wimbush, James C. & Stephens, Carroll U., 1995. "The Place of Ethics in Business: Shifting Paradigms?," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 577-601, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:5:y:1995:i:03:p:577-601_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1052150X00011908/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Craig VanSandt & Jon Shepard & Stephen Zappe, 2006. "An Examination of the Relationship Between Ethical Work Climate and Moral Awareness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 68(4), pages 409-432, November.
    2. Beninger, Stefanie & Francis, June N.P., 2022. "Resources for business resilience in a COVID-19 world: A community-centric approach," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 227-238.
    3. Craig VanSandt & Mukesh Sud, 2012. "Poverty Alleviation through Partnerships: A Road Less Travelled for Business, Governments, and Entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(3), pages 321-332, October.
    4. Mukesh Sud & Craig VanSandt, 2011. "Of Fair Markets and Distributive Justice," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 131-142, February.
    5. Eva E. Tsahuridu, 2006. "Anomie and Ethics at Work," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 163-174, December.
    6. Mukesh Sud & Craig VanSandt & Amanda Baugous, 2009. "Social Entrepreneurship: The Role of Institutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(1), pages 201-216, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:5:y:1995:i:03:p:577-601_01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/beq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.