Business Ethics: Literature Review

Title: Business ethics: too little, too late

Keywords: Business education; Ethics; Law

Abstract: Describes the marginal accommodation of courses in business ethics within the business studies first degree curriculum. . Also suggests that, as a final-year option, discrete courses in business ethics do little to disturb the market orthodoxy of business studies students.

Introduction: As public and academic interest in business ethics has grown, the business studies curriculum has begun to respond slowly to the uproar for an ethical dimension. Calls for a closer examination of business “values” within the business studies curriculum became a cause for concern in the early 1980s.

Discussion: The core curriculum of business studies is still dominated by subject or functional study which excludes debate on the values of the business system. The marginal impact of ethics in business education is predictable given that the basic precepts of competitive capitalism are shaped and reinforced by dominant subject traditions such as economics and law. Moreover, many business studies undergraduates will have previously studied economics at A-level, where a curriculum based on positive economics also dominates. The business studies law curriculum, preeminently dependent on contract and employment law, also plays a significant role in shaping the values of business students. Contract law, which also forms the theoretical basis of employment law, sets out the rules by which business conflict, in the context of the free market, may legitimately take place. Contract law also provides business students with a moral framework which underscores competitive values. Contracts require the full knowledge and consent of the parties, together with the absence of misrepresentation. These central tenets of contract appear to guarantee a strong moral dimension in business activity, including free will and truth telling. However, far from establishing a genuinely moral framework,...