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Does Ethics Pay?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Lynn Sharp Paine
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Abstract:

The relationship between ethics and economics has never been easy. Opponents in a tug of war, friends in a warm embrace, ships passing in the night—the relationship has been highly variable. In recent years, the friendship model has been gaining credence, particularly among U.S. corporate executives. Increasingly, companies are launching ethics programs, values initiatives, and community involvement activities premised on management’s belief that “Ethics pays.”

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 2000 , pp. 319 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2000

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References

I would like to thank my colleagues Joe Badaracco, Tom Piper, Dennis Thompson, Richard Tedlow, and Kenneth Winston for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

1 See Robert B. Reich, “The New Meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility,” California Management Review 40, no. 2 (1998).

2 Quoted in Bill Birchard, “How Many Masters Can You Serve?” CFO, July 1995, p. 54. Similar views can be found in the Business Roundtable’s recent Statement on Corporate Governance (September 1, 1997) and the 1998 OECD Report on Corporate Governance.

3 W. Edwards Deming, Foreword to John O. Whitney, The Trust Factor: Liberating Profits and Restoring Corporate Vitality (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), p. vii.

4 A account of the economic value of reputation can be found in Charles J. Fombrun, Reputation: Realizing the Value from the Corporate Image (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).

5 See, e.g., David A. Aker, “Building a Brand: The Saturn Story,” California Management Review, Winter 1994, pp. 114–133.

6 See James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr., and Christopher W. L. Hart, Service Breakthroughs Challenging the Rules of the Game (New York: The Free Press, 1990).

7 E.g., John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance (New York: The Free Press, 1992).

8 Debora Spar, “The Spotlight and the Bottom Line,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 1998.

9 See, for example, Lester Thurow, The Future of Capitalism: How Today’s Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow’s World (New York: W. Morrow, 1996).

10 Consider, for example, the fortunes amassed through forced labor and other gross abuses of human rights by merchants seeking ivory and rubber in colonial Africa. For a compelling recent account, see Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998).

11 Steve Fainaru, “Volatile mix of pressures faces teens, specialists say,” The Boston Globe, April 24, 1999, p. A8.

12 Ellen Barry, “Games feared as violent youths’ basic training,” The Boston Globe, April 29, 1999, p. A1.

13 Evan Thomas, “The King of Gore,” Newsweek, April 27, 1998.

14 Ibid., quoting Tom Hall, president of ION Storm, maker of Doom, which is reportedly “the best-selling shoot-’em-up videogame ever.”

15 Derek Donovan, “A Culture of Overkill,” The Kansas City Star, April 24, 1999.

16 For a description of Nike’s origins see C. Roland Christensen, “Phil Knight: CEO at NIKE (1983),” Harvard Business School case no. 9-390-038 (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1990.)

17 Paul LaMonica, “Brands,” Financial World, September 1, 1993.

18 Fireman made this comment in a presentation to the New England Legal Foundation in Boston in December 1997.

19 “Moral Thinking in Management: An Essential Capability,” Business Ethics Quarterly 6, no. 4 (1996): 477–492.

20 Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle, S.A.

21 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner (New York: Harper and Row, 1966).