Do business ethics really matter

Bibliographic Data

ID21259615
AuthorsDima Jamali (University of Sharjah, corresponding author), Ralf Barkemeyer (0000-0002-5492-9486, Kedge Business School), Stefan Marković (0000-0002-5287-5971, Copenhagen Business School), Georges Samara (0000-0002-8722-2647, University of Sharjah)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue3
Pages245-247
Publication date2021-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBusiness Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2694-6416 • E-ISSN: 2694-6424
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/beer.12354
OpenAlexW3171896847
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited16

Now that, with the help of our rather provocative title, we have successfully managed to draw your attention to our Editorial, we would like to engage in a brief reflection on the current state of the business ethics literature, future trajectories and ways to position scholarship in this evolving field, by identifying avenues for wider circulation and greater impact. For the impatient reader who is short of time, let us provide a quick answer to the question posed in the title: yes, of course, business ethics matters! At the same time, there is no doubt that scholarly perceptions and interactions with business ethics as a discipline are changing, and traditional business ethics theorizing is at risk of being marginalized. As a lot of you will know, we have recently revised our aims and scope as well as our title (Jamali et al., 2020, 2021). These revisions were based on the recognition that, over the years, BEER has moved away from a classical business ethics journal, with a general European focus, to one that is much broader in scope, in terms of empirical settings, themes related to business ethics, and management-related disciplines covered. In many ways, we have simply adjusted the scope and title to the reality of our journal, the nature of the scholarship that we are receiving, and the demands and expectations of our readership. In short, we have adapted the journal to the varying nature of the scholarly field of business ethics based on the changing needs and expectations as will be further explained below. Historically, BEER has never been firmly positioned within one single discipline. However, the increasing pace of globalization and the emergence of global governance (Zaman et al., 2020), grand challenges (George et al., 2016), wicked problems (Reinecke & Ansari, 2016) or the SDG discourse (Kolk et al., 2017), have contributed to a much broader and increasingly interdisciplinary outlook of business ethics. This means that the role of business ethics vis-à-vis bordering disciplines is also changing. Even though it is arguably difficult to draw an exact demarcation line between business ethics and other related fields of enquiry, such as sustainability, a common denominator is that the vast majority of highly cited articles in business ethics outlets, such as Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society or BEER, have tended to be increasingly interdisciplinary in nature, interfacing and boundary spanning with other subject areas. Notable examples of recent business ethics scholarship that has been widely embraced and circulated include research focusing on corporate sustainability (Hahn et al., 2015), circular economy (Murray et al., 2017), global value chains (Gereffi & Lee, 2016), corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Iglesias et al., 2020), responsible finance (Revelli & Viviani, 2015; Wang et al., 2016), and social entrepreneurship (Littlewood & Holt, 2018). Other more traditional scholarship that has also attracted attention in the business ethics field includes stakeholder theorizing, responsible leadership and responsible HRM, albeit at much lower levels in terms of citation counts. It is therefore clear that business ethics is not only important in several related areas of business research, but also has the potential to inform and advance the areas that provide an ethical angle to their argumentation. The same trends can be observed by looking closely at recent scholarship published in BEER. Some of the most well-cited articles in recent years in BEER deal with CSR. Whilst some of these articles focus explicitly on CSR, others intersect CSR with other management-related fields (e.g., communication, finance). An example of the former would be the 2020 BEER Best Paper Award winner by Frynas and Yamahaki (2016), which reviews the theories related to the external and internal drivers of CSR that have been used by previous literature to explain CSR. In addition, the paper suggests some relevant avenues for future research in the field of CSR, particularly emphasizing the need for multi-theory studies and research using multiple levels of analysis. An example of the latter would be the 2020 BEER Best Paper Award runner-up by Revelli and Viviani (2015), which combines CSR with finance, and examines how socially responsible investing (SRI) relates to financial performance to determine whether including CSR in portfolio management pays off. Another example is the so-far most cited BEER article by Morsing and Schultz (2006), which intertwines CSR with the field of communication, and concludes that organizations ought to enhance the role of stakeholders in CSR communication processes, in order to improve legitimacy, reputation and firm-stakeholder relationships. The paper also argues that the communication of CSR initiatives should be a two-way, iterative, sense-giving and sense-making process, taking place between the organization and its stakeholders. The fact that classical business ethics topics do not feature amongst the set of highly cited articles published in business ethics outlets is somewhat surprising and alarming, and thus worth dwelling on and investigating in more depth. We acknowledge the limitations of citation counts as the sole indicator of research quality or visibility. Nevertheless, citation counts represent a relevant impact measure that is being increasingly adopted to gauge the real circulation and influence of any particular piece of scholarship. As much as we also believe in other metrics and relevant measures of quality (e.g. the number of downloads or journal quality guides such as AJG, ABDC or FT50), an undeniable fact is that most authors and journals would prefer higher to lower citation counts. There can be good reasons for low numbers of citations, such as quicker turnaround times for natural-science-leaning journals, the sheer size of a scholarly field in terms of the number of research-active academics, the typical length of a contribution in different disciplines, or maybe, on occasion, even the rigour of the review process. But whatever the exact set of reasons for the slow uptake of classical business ethics research is, we are left with the curious situation that even though the need for business ethics has never been more pressing than today, traditional business ethics theorizing is more and more at risk of being marginalized. It is somewhat ironic that, in the age of private governance that relies on an unprecedented degree of business responsibility (Zaman et al., 2020), classical business ethics scholarship is increasingly struggling to make itself heard. From an author perspective, a pragmatic step is to reach out to other literatures; there are exciting opportunities for business ethics research outside of the mainstream business ethics field (e.g. business ethics and artificial intelligence, business ethics and big data). There are also thrilling opportunities for stronger links and amalgamation and synergy between the business ethics, social responsibility and sustainability literatures, which remain rather under-exploited. Therefore, it would be interesting for authors to distinguish between these three literature streams, by delineating their common points and those of divergence. For example, does socially responsible business fall under the overall domain of business ethics, or can we speak of two parallel and related or complementary fields? In this regard, our recent title change and revised aims & scope represent an attempt to move these debates ‘closer to home’, and to capture the wide range of fields and disciplines that are associated with the area of business ethics. Meanwhile, to further support the business ethics research field and create room for and accommodate varied scholarship that falls under such a broad field, we created BEER Heterodoxies—a new section in the journal that is open to various fields but centred on business ethics, sustainability, and CSR theorizing. BEER Heterodoxies is expected to generate and accommodate rather unorthodox conversations around under-explored and/or controversial topics, using a bold and innovative tone that is hitherto unfamiliar in the business ethics lexicon. Our intention is to push the boundaries and give voice to more creative, unorthodox and daring pieces of scholarship through flexible, shorter contributions. We have now started to receive submissions, and we encourage authors to take part in this creative writing and boundary-spanning process that is likely to contribute further to the enlargement of the horizon of the business ethics field. Finally, there is definitely room to be more vocal as a community, and to highlight trends, contributions and milestones. That is why, at BEER, we are developing our own social media presence, and we kindly invite all our stakeholders to engage in a conversation with us via our social media outlets, including Twitter (@BEER_Wiley), Instagram (@BEER_Wiley), and soon Facebook. In a nutshell, business ethics as a classical discipline is in a critical metamorphosis stage, which puts more responsibility on all scholars that are genuinely interested in this field to contribute to its shaping through cross-fertilization with other closely related disciplines. We believe that business ethics matter as much as before, if not more, but that the currently low citation counts are part of the natural evolution of any field of scholarship. Through responsible and flexible engagement, we believe that we can preserve the roots or foundations of this important field, while also integrating related disciplines and contributions through an interdisciplinary lens. We have shown enough flexibility to adjust as a journal, and with the intrigue and curiosity of the researchers within us, we are looking forward to advancing extant business ethics scholarship, while exploring new pathways in partnership with our outstanding community of scholars. We are open to discuss with anyone interested in making a contribution to the business ethics field, especially within the broader conception and lens we have tried to capture and present in this Editorial

Business · Business ethics · Engineering ethics · Political science · Public relations · Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting · Engineering · Environmental Sustainability in Business · Ethics in Business and Education

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