Using the University Library, locate two articles discussing the business ethics of a foreign country. Each article must contain information on a different foreign country on different continents.

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twenty_years_of_european_business_ethics.pdf

Twenty Years of European Business Ethics

– Past Developments and Future Concerns Luc van Liedekerke

Wim Dubbink

ABSTRACT. Over the past 20 years business ethics in

Europe witnessed a remarkable growth. Today business

ethics is faced with two challenges. The first comes from

the social sciences and consultants who have both

reclaimed the topics of business ethics, regretfully often at

the loss of the proper ethical perspective. The second

comes from the remarkable rise of corporate social

responsibility which has pushed aside the mainstream

business ethics methodology with its emphasis on moral

deliberation by the individual. These challenges can be

tackled by an institutional transformation in business

ethics that links up to the long-standing European tradi-

tion of institutional analysis of the market. The second

remedy is an enlargement of the research agenda in

business ethics by coming closer to other parts of applied

ethics where the business ethics view is at this moment

grossly neglected.

KEY WORDS: business ethics, corporate social respon-

sibility, Europe

From Europe to America and back:

the invention of business ethics

Both the greatest critics and the greatest advocates of

the free market often point out that the ‘‘moral

viewpoint in business’’ is an oxymoron. Morality does

not, should not or cannot have any business in busi-

ness because man is greedy beyond redeem or because

systemic pressure is relentless. Only strong (govern-

ment) regulation can and should curtail business in

order to safeguard our fundamental rights. Any

business ethicist, who was confronted with this type

of remarks, knows how to rebut these comments as a

mantra learned by heart. Even if man has fundamental

rights, these rights do not overrule morality, but

presuppose it. And if the last 50 years have given us

any macro-sociological truth, it is that ‘the state’ or

‘the system’ is not going to save us – at least not

without humans helping them and helping them-

selves. What is more, systemic power is not com-

pletely beyond societal control and not so relentless

that the actor perspective becomes completely trivial,

as man cannot be reduced to greediness, even if self-

interest can become at times quite dominant.

As much as business can never do without ethics,

‘‘business ethics’’ as an academic discipline is a rare

breed. It is in a sense surprising that it could develop

in Europe at all (van Luijk, 2006, p. 7). In the 60s and

70s many people were quite critical of ‘‘the corporate

interest’’ and the ‘‘profit motive’’ as such. Societal

problems such as pollution, structural poverty and

over-consumption were squarely blamed on business

but ‘‘business ethics’’ was not seen as part of the

solution by these critics. On the contrary, it was

perceived as a cover up meant to lure the public into

believing that the market and the businessman could

add something positive to society. Conversely,

business people were themselves quite suspicious of

this new breed of ‘‘business ethicists’’. What did these

academics know about practice, anyway? And, was

there any difference between them and the critics

who blamed the businessman for all the problems of

the world? But perhaps the most destructive scepti-

cism and hard opposition came from colleagues in

fundamental philosophy in the philosophy depart-

ment. For them, the core of ethics lay in meta-ethical

issues. Practice was irrelevant. Many of them lacked

the faculty of being open-minded about applied

ethics in the first place and so could only experience

downright hostility towards business ethics. Because

of its relation with money, it was the worst form in

which applied ethics could materialise. Business

ethics was – and for many of them still is – misguided,

trivial and superficial at best. The only reason to

tolerate it in the department is the promise it holds of

Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 82:273–280 � Springer 2008 DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9886-x

some money-making project that could save the

departmental budget, next to the fact that – regret-

fully – too many students are interested in it. Add to

this the rising tide of liberalism in the 80s, the

apparent triumph of the free market in the 90s and

the overall rise of ethical relativism and you find

yourself in a quite hostile surrounding for business

ethics as an academic discipline.

And, yet the take off of business ethics as an

academic discipline came remarkably fast. The

development of EBEN over the past 20 years is

testimony to this. Started out in 1987 with a small

group of academics, it turned into an organisation

with 1200 members spread out over 40 countries

and the growth is clearly not finished. But will there

still be business ethics in Europe in – say – another

20 years? If the question simply is whether there will

be moral reflection on the free market economy, the

answer can only be affirmative. Ever since its rise in

Europe in the late Middle Ages, the free market has

elicited or even commanded moral reflection.

Medieval monks criticised the imperfectness and

injustice of the markets of their times and the im-

moral consequences thereof (Tawney, 1926/1979).

In later centuries there were others, such as Simonde

de Sismondi, Heinrich Pesch, Oswald von Nell

Breunung and of course, John Stuart Mill and Karl

Marx. All of them reflected on and often criticised

the profit motive as such, certain abuses of the sys-

tem and the system itself. It seems safe to assume that

these reflections and criticisms will continue to arise

in the future. The basic reason is that the concept of

a free market is often at odds with some deep-seated

moral intuitions and considerations. The profit

motive itself stands in need of an explanation,

especially if it ousts other concerns, motives and

reasons. What is more, particular aspects or conse-

quences of the market will always need an expla-

nation (and/or political repair), for example the

environmental degradation that is associated with it,

the inequality that it gives rise to or the sometimes

problematic effect on man’s moral development

(Mill, 1848).

Europe’s rich historical tradition on market-

reflection reached America and its many business

schools where it was eagerly taken over before

transforming itself during the 70s into what we now

know as business ethics. The early business ethicists

clearly wanted something more practical, closer to

the firm and closer to the businessperson. This had

an immediate appeal not only to students but also

outside of the faculties. Part of their success

undoubtedly was that they asked new questions and

put forward a new theoretical framework. The

typical question raised by the American academic

was whether a specified actor in a given context

morally could or could not do a particular act.

The theoretical frame of the pioneer American

business ethicists focused on the micro-level in

which concrete individuals are caught up in choice

situations. The method was case based in order to

make students feel close to the real thing. The

dominant view was that individuals are the primary

locus of both (moral) responsibility and the principal

motor behind processes of societal change. Good-

paster’s (2007) recent and highly praised Conscience

and Corporate Culture is a contribution to business

ethics, exemplary of this American tradition. Inter-

estingly, the book opens with the almost Marxist

claim that ‘‘capitalism is in crisis’’ (Goodpaster, 2007,

p. 5). But instead of fixating on the many structural

factors causing this crisis, it forcefully puts the indi-

vidual in the centre of moral discourse. According to

Goodpaster capitalism is in crisis because it suffers

from ‘‘teleopathy’’. Teleopathy is an illness that

typically befalls on individuals and consists in an

unbalanced pursuit of ends. In the business context

this often means a fixation on profit maximisation by

the individual. Curing capitalism from this illness

first and foremost calls for moral leadership, i.e.

action by (special) individuals.

When American business ethics reached Europe

in the 80s the action-oriented and case-based

structure was – and to a certain extent still is – a

relief. It showed and articulated the fact that (the

quality of) human actions and human decisions in

the market do matter. During the 1960s and 70s the

normative study of the market was still dominated by

an institutional analysis in which Marxist thinking

loomed large. The Marxist analysis shared with

Goodpaster the idea that ‘‘capitalism is in crisis’’ but

Marxism did not relate this crisis to the actions of

individuals. In terms of its underlying framework, it

fully concentrated on the system level. That pro-

vided fascinating analytical insights as to how human

conduct is structured by institutional forces. But it

allowed for little practical prescriptions at actor level

at all. Politics – radical politics – was the only way to

274 Luc van Liedekerke and Wim Dubbink

change anything in the market. The institutional

analysis still inspires many continental philosophers

today. Hidden under the flagship ‘globalisation’

comes an analysis in which markets are essentially

beyond control and individuals the victims of an

unremitting system that pushes the lives of millions

into consumption disaster. Looked upon from this

point of view American business ethics is a relief; it

saves the individual and places morality in the

limelight once again. Virtues matter, duty is real,

care is not superfluous. It is the ideal cure for an

institutional analysis that trivialised the individual.

But despite the success of Goodpasters book not

all is well with this classical form of business ethics.

At least two challenges need to be mentioned. The

first one is a clear professionalisation of business

ethics. The issues that were raised by business ethi-

cists were gradually taken up by social sciences. We

need only take a look at the content of this journal;

over the past years the philosophical contributions

have clearly been marginalised by their more

empirical counterparts. In a sense we can only hail

this development; it is clear that developing, e.g. a

proper psychological theory about what drives

people into bribery – a theory that can be experi-

mentally tested – will in the end give us much more

insight into the problem of corruption then any

philosophical reflection will ever do. The profes-

sionalisation of business ethics along academic lines,

and from another angle along consulting lines has

enlarged the range of business ethics and raised its

public as well as scientific status. But the philosopher

is left standing at the sideline. Like so many times

before in the long history of philosophy, philoso-

phers started the research field but the subjects at

hand are gradually taken over by their colleagues in

the business faculties and social science department.

One should not mourn this development too much,

as indicated above it is a natural development,

indicating that the field is maturing. The only danger

that needs to be mentioned is a marginalisation of

the normative stance. Consultants know very well

that customers do not like to be lectured in a nor-

mative way and science clearly presupposes neu-

trality, not condemnation. However, a quick

consultation of the newspapers teaches us that the

normative issues are today as burning as ever. The

ethicist has a duty to continue to speak out, science

can deepen our judgement, consultants help us

translate it into a message that can be understood by

business but it is clear that one should keep talking

about duty, virtue, justice and care. The normative

approach that started the field of business ethics in

the first place remains essential to the discipline.

CSR in Europe

A second challenge to mainstream business ethics is

the rise of ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ (CSR) as a

dominant discourse partly ousting and partly replac-

ing business ethics. It is probably fair to say that the

sudden rise and persistence of CSR as a discourse on

corporate morality has taken many business ethicists

certainly in Europe by surprise. At the start one was

inclined either not to take CSR serious or to dismiss it

as an American fad that would soon disappear and

could never gain ground on the European continent.

The sceptics were proven wrong. By now CSR re-

search is a prominent topic in the field of business

ethics and paradoxically enough seems to flourish

even better in Europe than in the US. We will give

some tentative explanation for this hereafter.

The history of corporate social responsibility goes

back at least as long as the history of business ethics,

but it is only recently that corporate social respon-

sibility was turned into the popular CSR label. 1

CSR is visibly a cluster concept overlapping with

such diverse notions as business ethics, corporate

responsibility, corporate citizenship, sustainability,

environmental responsibility and corporate philan-

thropy. Like business ethics the CSR movement

clearly originated from the Anglo-Saxon world with

Continental Europe and Japan following much la-

ter. 2

According to Matten and Moon (2004) there is

a natural explanation for this. With its liberal tradi-

tion of self-help, individualism, strong markets and

limited or indirect government there is a larger scope

for discretionary action by companies in the US than

in Europe. European countries with their much

more heavy handed regulatory structures limit the

voluntary action field of companies. In order to

capture this institutional difference Matten and

Moon introduce the by now quite common dis-

tinction between implicit and explicit CSR. Explicit

CSR describes the American practice, implicit CSR

the European. This explanation also seems to suggest

that American companies should be the natural

Twenty Years of European Business Ethics 275

leaders when it comes to explicit, voluntary CSR

action, with Europe and the rest of the world lagging

behind. However, as we indicate below this is far

from evident.

Empirical research on this matter is scant and

seems at first sight to confirm the idea of American

dominance in CSR. Maignan and Ralston (2002)

find that 53% of American companies mention CSR

explicitly on their website, while only 29% of the

French and 25% of the Dutch do. In a US–UK

comparison Brammer and Pavelin (2005) found that

the value of corporate community contributions (a

long-standing area of CSR) was more than 10 times

greater in the US than in the UK. The figures would

be even more startling if one would compare the US

to continental Europe. In this issue Sotorrı́o and

Fernández Sanchez (2008) seem to confirm this

observation when they report higher scores for

American companies in five of the 12 indicators for

community responsibility.

However, these data are flatly denied by a number

of other observations. Studies looking at companies’

sustainability reporting consistently find that

reporting rates are highest in Europe, followed by

Japan, and with the US showing the lowest rates of

reporting among comparable companies (Kolk,

2003, 2006; KPMG, 2005; Welford, 2005). Kolk’s

most recent study shows that 90% of European

companies in the Fortune Global 250 publish sus-

tainability reports, followed by 83% of Japanese

companies, as contrasted with 35% of American

companies. Kolk suggests that this dramatic differ-

ential between Europe and the US reflects European

leadership in CSR (Kolk, 2006: 6). There might be

an alternative explanation – also recognised by Kolk

– American disclosure patterns and lack of verifica-

tion may reflect the greater concern with litigation

in the United States, and the difficulties of a purely

voluntary approach to expanded sustainability dis-

closure in such a context. In Europe by contrast

more and more governments require some form of

social and environmental reporting, albeit without

being specific about the format. But then again, the

fact that Europe requires some aspects of sustain-

ability reporting can also be understood as evidence

of its leadership on CSR.

Differences also emerge in external verification of

sustainability reports, with 45% of European reports

being externally verified, as contrasted with 24% of

Japanese reports and 3% of American reports (Kolk,

2006, Table 3). Here again the differences are

astonishing. Kolk’s impression that Europeans lead

the CSR movement is corroborated by Welford

(2005) who states that in general CSR is more active

in (Middle and Northern) Europe than in the Uni-

ted States or Canada. Accountability’s National

Corporate Responsibility Index (NCRI) puts

European countries systematically at the top of its

ranking and in this issue this opinion is further

supported by Sotorrı́o and Fernández Sanchez

(2008). In their study European companies score

systematically better for all indicators of responsi-

bility to customers and employees and on all but one

indicator for environmental responsibility. American

companies can in the end only point towards phi-

lanthropy as the field in which they clearly take the

lead. 3

At first sight this seems a counterintuitive result.

European companies living in highly regulated

countries where CSR is a relatively recent phe-

nomenon take up CSR much more easily and in

bigger numbers than their American counterparts.

What is going on?

The answer takes us back to the institutional

tradition in Europe, mentioned above. The societal

role of the economy and business in particular has

always been an important topic in the European

intellectual tradition. From the start the political role

of the corporation was never reduced to its eco-

nomic responsibility. That corporations posses obli-

gations outside the law could only be considered a

novelty in an American tradition characterised by

individualism and a large scope for discretionary

actions. In Europe, by contrast the societal respon-

sibilities of corporations were deemed so important

that we developed an extensive legal framework

around the corporation in order to make sure that

these responsibilities were taken serious. No room

for Friedman type liberalism in this world. The CSR

movement simply steps into this long tradition. It is

in this sense not surprising that the notion ‘corporate

citizenship’ as one way to understand CSR is so

popular in German-speaking countries, as it comes

close to the long tradition of institutional reflection

on the democratic role of corporations. Finally, it is

important to realise that for the larger part of

(Western) Europe it holds that this tradition is

understood not only by academics, but also by

276 Luc van Liedekerke and Wim Dubbink

consumers, investors and business people alike.

What Matten and Moon describe as implicit CSR is

in the end a generalised, culturally entrenched

concern with the societal responsibilities of business

which justifies the CSR efforts of the European

Commission and fuels the European CSR move-

ment fast forward.

Again this is a development we should rather

applaud. It brings many issues that are central to

business ethics closer to politics and the general

public. However, from the side of business ethics a

sceptical attitude towards CSR has always been

present. The criticism goes many ways but one

important point is that CSR seems to suggest that

the ethical responsibilities of the corporation are

situated outside its proper economic activities; it is

an extra coming on top of its core business. This

goes flatly against for instance a strategic stakeholder

model that places the ethical responsibilities of

companies inside the core business. Recently, the

interpretation of CSR has moved into a strategic

direction bringing CSR much closer to the core

activities, but even this Drucker style CSR has in-

vited serious criticism from business ethics. This

strategic form of CSR is exposed as a pure instru-

mentalisation of ethics, something that is generally

condemned by ethicists as spelling the dead of ethics.

While this criticism of CSR is certainly warranted

and needed, we believe that the CSR movement

basically invites business ethics to look for a way to

integrate the CSR idea within business ethics. The

answer can only come from a reconsideration of the

institutional dimension in business ethics.

The institutional transformation

of business ethics

Upon its introduction in Europe the action-oriented

and case-based structure of American business ethics

was certainly a relief but the approach has its one-

sidedness and limitations as well, especially in a

European context. European culture believes in

institutions more than it believes in free acting

individuals as motor of social change. It does not

believe that an individual can structurally act and

accomplish things if she acts against institutional

logic. In the market context this institutional logic is

determined by market forces and geared towards

individual profit maximisation. Besides, it will also

deny the moral reasonableness of actions that go

against this logic. It is overdemanding for the indi-

vidual concerned and its efficacy will necessary be

low. European culture is also state minded, in the

sense that there is a strong belief that some questions

are by their nature collective and thus cannot be

solved outside of the state (which is not the same as

to say that collective issues can only and exclusively

be handled by the state).

The institutional ‘‘hang up’’ of Europe means that

business ethics as an academic discipline will not be

taken serious as long as it simply copies the indi-

vidualist American framework. It will not be taken

serious by the ‘‘realist’’ public, NGOs, unions and

other stakeholders of corporations. They will ques-

tion the reach of individualist market morality in the

face of competitive forces. It will also not be taken

serious by European academics, experienced as they

are in the theories of Althusser, Habermas and

Luhmann. It will not even be taken serious by

European businesspeople who are quick to point out

that anything is possible in the market context, as

long as there is a ‘‘level playing field’’.

This implies that business ethics in Europe can

only be able to celebrate its 40th birthday if it goes

through an institutional transformation. The

founding fathers of European business ethics, such as

Horst Steinmann in Germany, Peter Ulrich in

Switzerland and Henk van Luijk in the Netherlands

already were well aware of this. They also have made

a significant start with this transformation and are still

working on it. Nevertheless, as we see it, the insti-

tutional transformation is not yet sufficiently carried

through. It is not only that too often business ethics

still simply ignores the institutional dimension. More

importantly, there does not seem to be a theory on

the market that is able to combine the institutional

dimension and the actor dimension. Such a theory

should be able to map the institutional constraints

facing actors in the market context but still be able to

describe and explain the actor perspective in a

morally appealing way.

As we see it, the institutional transformation in

business ethics must take shape at three levels. It

should provide us with a political theory of the

market, thus explaining why business ethics is

important in a liberal free market, normatively

speaking. It should also position business ethics given

Twenty Years of European Business Ethics 277

a macro-sociological account of the market system

and – last but not least – it should position business

ethics at the meso-sociological level of the corpo-

ration. With regard to this last level one of the most

interesting questions for the coming years will be:

what can and must we morally require of the insti-

tutional design of the corporation in view of our

knowledge of common pattern of human behav-

iour? We are the first to admit that with regard to all

these three levels important developments have al-

ready been started. With regard to the first two levels

we can for example think of the work of Peter

Ulrich (1997) and, interestingly, with regard to the

last level we can think of the work of the Americans

Trevino and Weaver (2003). Still, as we see it, the

work of Ulrich must cope with the criticism that it is

either too radical (and thus rejects the free market

system as such) or too optimistically naı̈ve. With

regard to the meso-level an adequate and unified

theory of institutional design is still missing.

Broadening the issues

The search for a grander, more unified theory with

an important institutional dimension is one concern

for the future of business ethics. A second concern

which we would like to point out is a relative lack of

new research programmes and new research ques-

tions in business ethics. Business ethics arose in the

wake of particular moral issues. If one skims through

a standard business ethics handbook, one quickly

gets an impression of these core issues: discrimina-

tion, sexual harassment, bribery, equal treatment of

employees, advertisement, occupational health and

safety, unjust dismissal, financial issues and pollution.

These issues were important and crucial in the last

20 years and they will undoubtedly stay important.

However, if business ethics wants to prove its rele-

vance in the next 20 years in Europe, new themes

need to be addressed. Consider for instance issues

related to the treatment of animals, technological

development or medical concerns. To be sure, the

moral dimension of all these important themes is not

completely unexplored in today’s applied ethics.

There is animal ethics, technological ethics, medical

ethics and bioethics. But it often looks as if the fields

of applied ethics are drifting apart without too much

overlap or synergy. This is not very helpful. We

need only point out that free markets play an

essential part in all these problems. There are specific

commercial aspects to medical or animal rights issues,

aspects that are often not well articulated. It is for

instance not unimportant that most animals are

domesticated in a commercial setting. Medical or-

ganisations such as hospitals are also commercial

organisations and if not outright so financial con-

cerns are increasingly relevant to them. New tech-

nologies such as genetically modified crops or

genetically modified medicines are developed by

commercial companies. Business ethicists must gain

expertise in these fields and bring their expertise on

free market morality to these research areas, thus

contributing and joining new research fields that will

undoubtedly be very important in the future. Thus,

paraphrasing Chris MacDonalds (2004) there is not

only a need for a ‘‘business ethics 101’’ in many

fields; there is also a need for many ‘‘101 courses’’ for

business ethicists.

Business ethics needs to explore new themes if it

wants to show its relevance in the next 20 years and

it needs to explore them in new ways. With regard

to many contemporary moral issues it is rather

uninteresting to analyse them only as choice situa-

tions of particular individuals who are confronted

with a hard choice. In our technology-driven world

the real moral choices are made in the process in

which a particular technology was shaped. If agri-

cultural technology forces farmers to house their pigs

so crammed that they pre-emptively have to cut of

their tails, then it is hardly an interesting question

whether it is morally permissible to do so. The

crucial morally relevant question then becomes: ‘‘do

I want to be a farmer?’’ Since, if you choose to be

farmer, you have to play along. 4

The point is that the

moral issues have to be dealt with in a very early

stage. Any technology embodies moral choice.

Complex modern technology hardly leaves less and

less discretion to its user (Swierstra, 2006). Conse-

quently, the moral issues interwoven with specific

technologies must be dealt with while these tech-

nologies are being developed. Business ethics will

need to pick up specific insights from technological

ethics, animal ethics, bioethics, etc. At the same time

these sister research areas in applied ethics should

open up much more to the economic dimension of

their research field leaving the possibility for business

ethicists to contribute to their field in an important

278 Luc van Liedekerke and Wim Dubbink

way. This would create real synergy and make

business ethics relevant for many different domains.

Conclusion

This special issue connected to the twentieth anni-

versary of EBEN and focusing on the European

dimension in business ethics seemed like an ideal

opportunity for a short reflection on the past and

future of business ethics in Europe. The past 20 years

have witnessed a tremendous growth in the field of

business ethics in Europe, yet the mainstream

philosophical approach that reached Europe through

the US has in many respects been marginalised. Its

topics (e.g. diversity, bribery, marketing) were taken

over by social scholars and consultants alike. Trivi-

alisation of the normative stance that stood at the

centre of mainstream business ethics was the un-

happy result of this evolution. Mainstream business

ethics was also challenged by the rise of the CSR

movement where the classical business ethics

method focusing on the individual in a moral choice

situation seemed to lose its relevance. If the next

20 years want to be as fruitful as the previous,

business ethics will need to come up with an answer.

Two developments seem crucial in this respect. The

first is the ‘‘institutional transformation’’ of business

ethics. Grand theory, gladly left behind by American

business ethics, should stand another chance. It needs

to come up with an integrated theory that provides

us with a normative theory of the free market that

gives an adequate explanation from the institutional

side for the importance of business ethics. Combine

this with a meso-theory of the organisation which

shows us what a moral organisation needs to look

like and integrate in this the role of an autonomous

individual that can make a moral choice. The second

development in business ethics that so far has failed

to materialise is a broadening of the issues involved

and knitting in with other fields in applied ethics.

Environmental ethics, bioethics, technological eth-

ics, food ethics all raise issues with a strong economic

dimension. Business ethics should take up the chal-

lenge and get acquainted with these fields while at

the same time bringing in the proper business ethics

view. This could jumpstart a completely new branch

of business ethics. If we take these challenges serious

we might be up for another interesting 20 years of

business ethics in Europe.

Notes

1 With seminal contributions by Bowen (1953), Eels

and Walton (1961) and MacGuire (1963) one could ar-

gue that the history of CSR reaches even further back

then the history of business ethics. 2

The real breakthrough for Europe situates itself only

at the end of the 90s and for the rest of the world a

breakthrough is still far away. 3

One should probably also add the domain of corpo-

rate governance. But this is a tricky issue almost as tricky

as the CSR question itself precisely because of the many

existing interpretations of corporate governance. 4

Of course: this is not to say that farmers are just vic-

tims. There are many ways ‘‘to play along’’. One can

play and ignore the animal welfare issues involved. One

can even play along and actively fight any attempt to

change things, even at a collective level. But one can

also play along and be open and involved about the

consequences of the ‘‘objectification’’ of non-human

life in contemporary society.

References

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Goodpaster, K. E.: 2007, Conscience and Corporate Culture

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Twenty Years of European Business Ethics 279

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Luc van Liedekerke

KULeuven, Center for Economics and Ethics,

Naamse straat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

E-mail: [email protected]

Wim Dubbink

Tilburg University,

Dante Building, Room D-248, P.O. Box 90153,

5000 LE, Tilburg, The Netherlands

E-mail: [email protected]

280 Luc van Liedekerke and Wim Dubbink