Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-n2sc8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-03T19:26:55.625Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Business and Society, the Society and Business, and, What Is It Like to Be a Rat?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2025

Christopher Wong Michaelson Open the ORCID record for Christopher Wong Michaelson [Opens in a new window]
Christopher Wong Michaelson*
Affiliation:
University of St. Thomas, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay reconsiders the possibility and prospects for the relationship between business ethics scholarship and the world of business practice. More specifically, to a field that often considers the question, “What should be the role of business in society?” it poses the question, “What should be the role of the Society for Business Ethics in business?” My intent is not to solve the related epistemological question of whether we have to “be one to know one.” It is, however, to encourage scholars to leave our laboratories more often to engage with the work and world of those we study. To that end, the essay poses a series of questions for us – individual scholars, members of the Society, and the Society itself – to consider about our relationship with business. It concludes with a postscript response to one of those questions: When, if ever, should the Society make public statements?

Keywords

theory-practice gapepistemologyimpartialitycave allegoryengaged scholarship
Type
Research Article
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 2025 , pp. 124 - 140
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anteby, M. 2013. Relaxing the taboo on telling our own stories: Upholding professional distance and personal involvement. Organization Science, 24(4): 1277–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartal, I. B. A., Decety, J., & Mason, P. 2011. Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science, 334(6061): 1427–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazerman, M. H., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. 2011. Blind spots: Why we fail to do what’s right and what to do about it. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowie, N. E. 2000. Business ethics, philosophy, and the next 25 years. Business Ethics Quarterly, 10(1): 7–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, J. 1983. On ethnographic authority. Representations, 2: 118–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, M., & Stark, A. (Eds.) 2001. Conflict of interest in the professions. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeGeorge, R. n.d. Philosophical history. Society for Business Ethics website. https://sbeonline.org/about-us/our-history/philosophical/.Google Scholar
Elliott, C. 2016. Fear and loathing in bioethics. Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, 6(1): 43–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ethics and Compliance Initiative (formerly, Ethics Resource Center). 2012. Inside the mind of a whistleblower: A supplemental report of the 2011 National Business Ethics Survey. https://www.ethics.org/wp-content/uploads/NBES-2011-Whistleblower-FINAL.pdf.Google Scholar
Fay, B. 1996. Contemporary philosophy of social science: A multicultural approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Firth, R. 1952. Ethical absolutism and the ideal observer. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 12(3): 317–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, R. C. F., & Swazey, J. P. 2008. Observing bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grasswick, H. 2018. Feminist social epistemology. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-social-epistemology/.Google Scholar
Green, M. C. 2021. Transportation into narrative worlds. In Frank, L. B. & Falzone, P. (Eds.), Entertainment-education behind the scenes. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Haberman, M. 2022. Confidence man: The making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. 2001. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4): 8148834.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffman, A. J. 2021. The engaged scholar: Expanding the impact of academic research in today’s world. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsu, S. S., Stein, P., & Rizzo, S. 2024. Judge: US can lay out Trump election interference evidence this month. Washington Post, September 5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/09/05/trump-jan6-election-interference-case-hearing/.Google Scholar
Jameton, A. 1984. Nursing practice: The ethical issues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Jollimore, T. 2021. Impartiality. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/impartiality/#MoraImpa.Google Scholar
Kafka, F. 2003. The metamorphosis. In The metamorphosis and other stories (Freed, D., Trans.). New York: Barnes & Noble Classics.Google Scholar
Khan, R. 2018. Whistleblower: Warrior, saboteur or snitch? Forbes, July 5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roomykhan/2018/07/05/whistleblower-warrior-saboteur-or-snitch/.Google Scholar
Kilduff, M., & Mehra, A. 1997. Postmodernism and organization research. Academy of Management Review, 22(2): 453–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, L., & Honderich, H. 2024. Trump ordered to pay $355m to New York for lying to banks. BBC News, February 17. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68320290.Google Scholar
Marshall, J. 2016. First person action research: Living life as inquiry. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelson, C. 1997. Philosophy out of the cave: An expedition in philosophical style. Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Michaelson, C. 2016. A novel approach to business ethics education: Exploring how to live and work in the 21st century. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 15(3): 588–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelson, C. 2021. Leadership and character(s): Behavioral business ethics in “War and Peace”. Journal of Business Ethics, 177(1): 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelson, C., Jameton, A. (deceased November 30, 2022), & Liaschenko, J. 2024. Moral distress in bioethics and business ethics. Working paper.Google Scholar
Michaelson, C., & Tosti-Kharas, J. 2020. A world changed: What post-9/11 stories tell us about the position of America, purpose of business, and meaning of work. Academy of Management Review, 45(4): 877–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaelson, C., & Tosti-Kharas, J. 2024. Is your work worth it? How to think about meaningful work. New York: Hachette/PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Nagel, T. 1979. What is it like to be a bat? In Mortal Questions: 165–80. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nature . 2020. Why Nature supports Joe Biden for US president. Editorial, October 15. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02852-x.Google Scholar
Neumeister, L., Peltz, J., & Sisak, M. R. 2023. Jury finds Trump liable for sexual abuse. Associated Press, May 10. https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. 1990. Love’s knowledge: Essays on philosophy and literature. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pappas, G. F. 2008. John Dewey’s ethics: Democracy as experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Parmar, B. L., Phillips, R. A., & Freeman, R. E. 2015. Pragmatism and organization studies: An introduction. In Mir, R., Willmott, H., & Greenwood, M. (Eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy in organization studies: 199–211. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plato. 1961. Republic (P. Shorey, Trans.). In Hamilton, E. & Cairns, H. (Eds.), The collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachels, J. 2004. The elements of moral philosophy (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Radford, C., & Weston, M. 1975. How can we be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina? Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 49(1): 67–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raphael, D. D. 2007. The impartial spectator: The moral philosophy of Adam Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reedy, P. 2008. Mirror, mirror, on the wall: Reflecting on the ethics and effects of a collective critical management studies identity project. Management Learning, 39(1): 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. 2005a. Narrative, organizations, and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3): 167–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. 2005b. Writing responsibly: Narrative fiction and organization studies. Organization, 12(4): 467–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutte, C., & Taborsky, M. 2007. Generalized reciprocity in rats. PLOS Biology, 5(7): e196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rynes, S. L., Bartunek, J. M., & Daft, R. L. 2001. Across the great divide: Knowledge creation and transfer between practitioners and academics. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2): 340–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schrijvers, J. 2004. The way of the rat: A survival guide to office politics. Littlehampton, UK: Cyan Communications.Google Scholar
Sisak, M. R., Peltz, J., Tucker, E., Price, M. L., & Colvin, J. 2024. Guilty: Trump becomes the first former US president convicted of felony crimes. Associated Press, May 31. https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0.Google Scholar
Society for Business Ethics. n.d. Our objectives. https://sbeonline.org/about-us/objectives/.Google Scholar
Svanberg, M. K., & Svanberg, C. F. C. 2022. The anti-egoist perspective in business ethics and its anti-business manifestations. Philosophy of Management, 21: 569–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takacs, D. 2003. How does your positionality bias your epistemology? Thought & Action, 19: 27–38.Google Scholar
Thrush, G., Nehamas, N., & Sullivan, E. 2023. Trump is arraigned on documents and obstruction charges. New York Times, June 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/trump-arraignment-documents.html.Google Scholar
Van de Ven, A. H. 2007. Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizational and social research. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, M. 1993. Interpretation and social criticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Werhane, P. 1999. Moral imagination and management decision making. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar