What is business ethics?

… the application of ethical values to business behaviour …

Although questions about the ethics of business are as old as business itself, as an academic subject, business ethics is relatively new. Its origins lie in the (still continuing) tradition of 'business and society' studies started in the USA in the 1960s and 70s. (The nearest UK equivalent would be 'business environment' courses dealing with business in an economic, legal, and political context.) Courses carrying the label 'business ethics' started in America in the late 1970s and early 80s. They were sometimes taught by lawyers, sometimes by teachers of mainstream business studies subjects such as accounting and marketing, but perhaps most often by philosophers being drafted into business schools to teach what were, in effect, applied ethics courses for business studies students. From the USA, business ethics spread to Europe in the mid to late 80s. Here (particularly in the UK) philosophers were, and are, probably much less involved than in the US: with courses mostly originating entirely within business schools and philosophers only paying attention when the subject started to become widespread and global in the mid to late 90s.
(Source for data on US: Bowie, N.E. 1986. 'Business Ethics', in DeMarco, J.P. and Fox, R.M. (eds.) New Directions in Ethics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.)

The subject matter of business ethics reflects its mixed origins. In crude terms, it can be described as the union of business and society studies with mainstream business studies subjects through the medium of moral philosophy along with environmental issues relevant to business. What results is attention to the ethical aspects of any and all the many different areas of business activity (accounting, marketing, human resource management, and so on), with the activity also examined in terms of the ethical dimension to the economic, legal, political, and environmental context in which it is carried out at both a local and global level. The range of topics this can cover is vast and varied. Moreover, new areas of study are constantly emerging in the wake of developments such as globalization, e-commerce, and accounting scandals such as Enron.

Consequently, no one course or textbook, no matter how comprehensive, can be expected to cover every topic. If, however, we examine textbooks and curriculum documents we find a great deal of congruence, with certain broad areas emerging as more or less standard. They divide, roughly speaking, into four very general and inevitably overlapping categories. (There are, it can be suggested, no entirely discrete issues in business ethics.)

First (1) comes very reflexive and often very theoretical questions to do with the nature of business ethics as a subject and the application of ethical theory to business.
Next (2) comes questions to do with the responsibilities and accountability of businesses and, in particular, large corporations.
After that (3) comes what can be called 'functional' questions to do with particular areas of activity (accounting, marketing, and so on).
Finally (4), we have what might be called 'global' questions to do with the rights and wrongs of particular economic systems along with questions concerning international business and the natural environment.

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