Business, Ethics, and Carol Gilligan's “Two Voices”

Abstract

This article argues that Carol Gilligan's research in moral development psychology, work which claims that women speak about ethics in a “different voice” than men do, is applicable to business ethics. This essay claims that Gilligan's “ethic of care” provides a plausible explanation for the results of two studies that found men and women handling ethical dilemmas in business differently. This paper also speculates briefly about the management implications of Gilligan's ideas.

Does a ‘care orientation’ explain gender differences in ethical decision making? A critical analysis and fresh findings

“…Indeed we suspect that there is as much evidence in our data for this latter point regarding ‘male’ values as there is for the initial hypothesis. That would be consistent with similar suggestions regarding a male tendency to ‘give primary attention to legal or financial considerations’ (White 1992: 57). In short, women, as represented by our research cohort, may subscribe to values which are different from those espoused by their male counterparts.…”

“…Some researchers have used scenarios and vignettes which describe actual or potential harm to the environment, or to people not personally known to, or spatially distant from, the moral agent, and yet the full theoretical implications are missed due to the authors' adherence to a narrow definition of care. This can lead to misleading or unclear conclusions, as in Barnett & Karson (1989) (also discussed in this context by White 1992) and perhaps Smith & Oakley (1997) (regarding their Scenario 2). It also has some bearing on the problems alluded to above regarding the use of research instruments such as those offered by Reidenbach & Robin (1988) and Jones (1991).…”

“…We return to the significance of this when discussing our own research. We have not found published empirical work in the field of EDM which clearly and explicitly sets out to test this, although Cohen et al (2001) in a footnote state that they did include an ‘ethics of caring’ as a ‘measure of feminine ethical reasoning’ in their research, but that they chose not to report the findings, while White (1992) does offer a relevant theoretical reinterpretation of others' work. Therefore we decided to further our enquiry by administering a survey to undergraduate students at a British university in 2007.…”

Gender differences in business ethics: justice and relativist perspectives

“…Beltramini et al 1984, Ferrel & Skinner 1988, Jones & Gautschi 1988, Akaah 1989, Betz et al 1989, Whipple & Swords 1992, Lane 1995, Glover et al 2002) but do not offer much insight into the theoretical underpinnings for the findings (e.g. Tsalikis & Fritzsche 1989, Serwinek 1992, White 1992, Ford & Richardson 1994).…”

“…Later, in experiencing moral conflict, females are primarily concerned with relationships and tend to focus on considerations of care, whereas males focus on considerations of justice. Accordingly, the literature on moral development and ethics differentiates between an ethic of justice and an ethic of care, also referred to as justice and care reasoning (White 1992). White (1992: 52) explains that the care perspective adds feeling to reason and ‘speaks about right and wrong in terms of what is appropriate to particular circumstances and focuses on our responsibilities to others’.…”