Moral Agency, Profits and the Firm: Economic Revisions to the Friedman Theorem

Wagner‐Tsukamoto, Sigmund

doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9106-5

“…They frequently come with a higher price because of more expensive production techniques and they can only succeed in the marketplace if environmentally aware consumers are prepared to pay such additional costs. Such products and the type of revenue they reflect in the marketplace can be referred to as 'ethical capital' (Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2005, 2007a.…”

Section: Active Moral Agency and Managerial Views On The Generation Omentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper here conceptualised active moral agency of the firm as the utilisation of ethical capital in firm-stakeholder interactions. This yielded a novel, economic reinterpretation of instrumental stakeholder theory (See also Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2007a) …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer Ethics in Japan: An Economic Reconstruction of Moral Agency of Japanese Firms – Qualitative Insights from Grocery/Retail Markets

Wagner‐Tsukamoto

¹

2008

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The paper reconstructs in economic terms managerial business ethics perceptions in the Japanese consumer market for fast moving, daily consumption products. An economic, three-level model of moral agency was applied that distinguishes unintentional moral agency, passive intentional moral agency, and active intentional moral agency. The study took a qualitative approach and utilized as empirical research design an interview procedure. The study found that moral agency of Japanese firms mostly extended up to unintentional and intentional passive moral agency. Certain myopic managerial views were found to affect active moral agency.This leaves room for business ethics programs that aim at the development of active moral agency. KEYWORDSEconomics & moral agency / consumer ethics; three types of moral agency; Japanese consumer industry; managerial perceptions on business ethics; qualitative empirical research.

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“…2-5;Himmelfarb 1995, p. 36;Windsor, 1980, p. 166 It can be argued that Quaker firms may have stood a better chance to successfully implement their ethics if they had approached the implementation of their ethics in economic terms. Three routes can here be distinguished (For a conceptual overview of these three routes, see Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2005, 2007b):…”

Section: Insert Figure 2 About Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights from the Study of Quaker Employers

Wagner‐Tsukamoto

¹

2016

Order Ethics: An Ethical Framework for the Social Market Economy

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The paper suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantiansim or religious ethics. The paper explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The paper argues that this approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and which favours behavioural intervention with the individual's value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics.The paper concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics as encountered in a modern context can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms.

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“…Regarding its very nature, they proposed and understood the economic approach as an alternative ethics to behavioural ethics. Hayek (1960Hayek ( , 1976, Buchanan (1975Buchanan ( , 1987a, and Friedman (1970) clearly sensed this, too, as did Homann's economic research on business ethics, interpreted as 'incentive ethics' (Homann, 1997(Homann, , 1999 see also Wagner-Tsukamoto 2005, 2007b. In this tradition of an economics approach to ethics, the present paper develops a critical perspective on behavioural business ethics, suggesting that the (institutional) economic approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics in order to promote business ethics.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights From the Study of Quaker Employers

Wagner‐Tsukamoto

¹

2007

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The paper suggests that in a modern context, where value pluralism is a prevailing and possibly even ethically desirable interaction condition, institutional economics provides a more viable business ethics than behavioural business ethics, such as Kantiansim or religious ethics. The paper explains how the institutional economic approach to business ethics analyses morality with regard to an interaction process, and favours non-behavioural, situational intervention with incentive structures and with capital exchange. The paper argues that this approach may have to be prioritised over behavioural business ethics which tends to analyse morality at the level of the individual and which favours behavioural intervention with the individual's value, norm and belief system, e.g. through ethical pedagogy, communicative techniques, etc. Quaker ethics is taken as an example of behavioural ethics.The paper concludes that through the conceptual grounding of behavioural ethics in the economic approach, theoretical and practical limitations of behavioural ethics as encountered in a modern context can be relaxed. Probably only then can behavioural ethics still contribute to raising moral standards in interactions amongst the members (stakeholders) of a single firm, and equally, amongst (the stakeholders of) different firms.

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Moral Agency, Profits and the Firm: Economic Revisions to the Friedman Theorem

Cited by 45 publications

References 17 publications

Consumer Ethics in Japan: An Economic Reconstruction of Moral Agency of Japanese Firms – Qualitative Insights from Grocery/Retail Markets

Consumer Ethics in Japan: An Economic Reconstruction of Moral Agency of Japanese Firms – Qualitative Insights from Grocery/Retail Markets

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights from the Study of Quaker Employers

Contrasting the Behavioural Business Ethics Approach and the Institutional Economic Approach to Business Ethics: Insights From the Study of Quaker Employers

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