Integrating Ethics With Strategy: Selected Papers of Alan E. Singer

412 Pages·2007·2.86 MB·English

by  Alan E. Singer

Integrating
Ethics
Strategy
With
Selected Papers of Alan E Singer
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Integrating
Ethics
Strategy
With
Selected Papers of Alan E Singer
Alan E Singer
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
World Scientific
N E W J E R S E Y • L O N D O N • S I N G A P O R E • B E I J I N G • S H A N G H A I • H O N G K O N G • TA I P E I • C H E N N A I
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
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USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Singer, Alan E.
Integrating ethics with strategy : selected papers of Alan E. Singer / by Alan E. Singer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-981-270-145-9 -- ISBN-10 981-270-145-1
1. Business ethics. 2. Strategic planning. I. Title.
HF5387.S573 2007
174'.4--dc22
2006048909
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2007 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
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Typeset by Stallion Press
Email: [email protected]
Printed in Singapore.
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CONTENTS
IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn 1
PPaarrtt II:: SSttrraatteeggyy aanndd EEtthhiiccss 11
1. FRAMEWORKS: An Organising Framework for 13
Ethics and Strategy
2. CORRESPONDENCES: Strategy as Moral Philosophy 31
3. SYNERGIES: Competitiveness as “Hyper-Strategy” 57
4. LIMITATIONS: Market Limitations as Strategic Problems 76
5. IDEALS: Managing Human Systems and Advancing 97
Humane Ideals
6. ECOLOGY: An Ecological Understanding of Global 113
Business
7. WISDOM: Towards Wise Enterprise 143
8. CONSCIENCE: Consciousness and Conscience as 155
Emergent Properties
PPaarrtt IIII:: MMooddeellss 165
9. RECURSIVITY: Strategy-Models are Self-Referential 167
10. GAMES: Game Theory and the Evolution of Strategic 187
Thinking
11. OPTIMALITY: Optimisation and Strategy 211
12. SYSTEMS: Management-Science and Business-Ethics 232
PPaarrtt IIIIII:: CCoonntteexxttss 249
13. POVERTY: Business Strategy and Poverty Alleviation 251
14. HEALTH: Curing Strategic Myopia 265
15. KNOWLEDGE: Meta-Theory and Intellectual Property 280
v
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vi (cid:1) Integrating Ethics with Strategy
16. DIVESTMENT: Corporate Conscience and Foreign 312
Divestment Decisions
17. CORRUPTION: Management Decision and Political 331
Action
18. JUSTICE: Preferential-Hiring and the Dualism 346
Bibliography 359
Author Index 385
Subject Index 393
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Introduction
Since the late 1970s, the political trend towards global capitalism and
increased corporate power has been thought of by detractors as a tempo-
rary aberration in a broader historic movement to a technologically-
enabled revitalisation of communities, social justice, humane ideals and the
natural environment. Since then, the visible hand of governments almost
everywhere have been pre-occupied with military-type security and sup-
porting international business, with only modest efforts being directed
towards compensating for the known imitations of market based systems.
During that same era, however, the business ethics movement has
gained momentum, especially in North America and Europe (although
similar movements existed long before, particularly in the UK). The first
issue of the Journal of Business Ethicswas in 1980 and the ensuing 30 years
of steady growth represents a triumph for its founding editor, Alex
Michalos. Soon after, Business Ethics Quarterly and other journals fol-
lowed, as many philosophers turned their attention towards applied ethics
and business ethics. These have provided a mixture of critical and sup-
portive perspectives on business-as-usual and the academic management
literature (e.g. Administrative Science Quarterly, Strategic Management
Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management
Studies, Journal of International Business Studies, etc.) but they have also
come to represent a kind of parallel intellectual universe.
Slowly but surely, the mainstream journals began to admit a trickle of
ideological, moral or “values-based” challenges to their dominant dis-
course. Articles on the relationship between economics and ethics, or on
corporate social responsibility, or business and society, globalisation and
international business, critical management and accounting, sustainable
business, social entrepreneurship, social and green marketing, ethical
investment, accounting ethics, social accounting, multi-bottom-line
reporting and so on, all became more numerous and more prominent.
1
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2 (cid:1) Integrating Ethics with Strategy
Several management science and systems journals were also involved.
Journals such as Human Systems Management(US) and Systems Practice
(UK) broadly advanced the scientific, the technical and the ethical, rather
than any particular ideology or methodology.
This book records a sustained attempt by the author to bridge and
inter-relate the parallel “discourses” or “universes” of business-as-usual and
ethical business. It is comprised of 18 chapters, each being an adapted,
updated and cross-referenced version of previously published work (with
cited co-authors, in some cases) that has appeared since 1984 in various
conference proceedings and business journals (full references are given in
the chapter abstracts).
Summary of the Chapters
Part I of the book “Strategy and Ethics”is comprised of eight chapters, as
follows: Frameworks (Chapter 1), Correspondences (Chapter 2), Synergies
(Chapter 3), Limitations (Chapter 4), Ideals (Chapter 5), Ecology (Chapter 6),
Wisdom (Chapter 7) and Conscience (Chapter 8). Each chapter elabo-
rates on specific aspects of the relationship (e.g. corporate and collective
moral agency, in Chapter 2 and Chapter 8). Part II then focuses upon
the many available conceptual models of strategic and ethical decision
making. Accordingly, there is more of a management science or systems
flavour to this part. There are four chapters: Recursivity (Chapter 9),
Games (Chapter 10), Optimality (Chapter 11) and Systems (Chapter 12).
The final part of the book then investigates some contexts within which
the preceding ideas can be applied, assessed and developed. It is comprised
of six chapters, as follows: Poverty (Chapter 13), Health (Chapter 14),
Knowledge (Chapter 15), Disinvestment (Chapter 16), Corruption
(Chapter 17) and Justice (Chapter 18).
Another useful way of partitioning the contents of the book concerns
the likely appeal of each chapter (article) to the general reader versus the
technical reader. It is suggested that the general reader or student might be
well served by turning first to Chapters 1, 4, 5, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 18
(see Table I). The remaining chapters should be skimmed at first (there are
plenty of diagrams and tables to assist this) with a view to re-visiting them,
later.
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Introduction(cid:1) 3
Table I Chapters suited to general versus technical readers.
General Technical
Part 1: Strategy and Ethics
1. FRAMEWORKS: An Organising 2. CORRESPONDENCES: Strategy as
Framework for Strategy and Ethics Moral Philosophy
4. LIMITATIONS: Market Limitations 3. SYNERGIES : Competitiveness as
as Strategic Problems “Hyper-Strategy”
5. IDEALS: Managing Human Systems 6. ECOLOGY: An Ecological
and Advancing Humane Ideals Understanding of Global Business
7. WISDOM: Towards Wise Enterprise
8. CONSCIENCE: Consciousness and
Conscience as Emergent Properties
Part 2: Models
9. RECURSIVITY: Strategy-Models 10. GAMES: Game theory and the
are Self- Referential Evolution of Strategic Thinking
12. SYSTEMS: Management-Science and 11. OPTIMALITY: Optimisation and
Business-Ethics Strategy
Part 3: Contexts
13. POVERTY: Business Strategy and 15. KNOWLEDGE: Meta-Theory and
Poverty Alleviation Intellectual Property
14. HEALTH: Curing Strategic Myopia 17. CORRUPTION: Management
16. DIVESTMENT: Corporate Decision and Political Action
Conscience and Foreign Divestment
Decisions
18. JUSTICE: Preferential-Hiring and
The Dualism
Part I
In the opening chapter, the dispersed academic literature that has dealt
with the relationship between business strategy and ethics is classified into
16 distinct themes (e.g. trust, performance, stakeholders, market limitations,
etc.). An organising framework is then set out, based upon the classical idea
of a dualism;but one that has many specified components (involving values-
priorities, ethical theories, language, etc.). Contributions to strategy and