Paradigms Linked: A Normative-Empirical Dialogue about Business Ethics

Singer, M.

doi:10.2307/3857433

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…The economic and the duty-aligned orientations overlap in the concern for the protection of negative rights; yet the economic orientation is markedly indifferent to positive or affirmative duty to others (Etzioni, 1988;Hausman, 1992;Sen, 1987;Swanson, 1995). As a result, positive duty in the CSR literature has often been overlooked or downplayed, despite pleas from business ethics scholars for an exploratory stance toward the integration of the two orientations (e.g., Singer, 1998;Swanson, 1995Swanson, , 1999Treviño & Weaver, 1994;Victor & Stevens, 1994). The study of corporate purchasers' decision making relative to women-owned enterprises helps close this gap, as explained below.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs on Corporate Purchasers’ Intention to Purchase From Women-Owned Enterprises

2010

Business & Society

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This doctoral thesis examines the impact of corporate supplier diversity programs on corporate purchasers' intention to purchase from women-owned enterprises using Ajzen's theory of planned behavior. Two hundred and seventy-two corporate purchasers across a diverse range of industries and geographical regions in the United States participated in a mail survey in which the participants responded to questions (capturing the constructs of the theory of planned behavior) related to a selected scenario. These scenarios (a 2 × 2 factorial design) manipulated two constructs: male/female of the small enterprise owner and corporate purchasers' familiarity/unfamiliarity with the enterprise. The goal of the experimental manipulation was to ensure sufficient variance in the study constructs. The results provided general support for the theory of planned behavior in capturing how corporate purchasers make decisions. The findings of the study show that programs designed to promote women-owned enterprises may be effective in gaining acceptance from corporate purchasers. Thus, the dissertation makes a contribution to the corporate social responsibility literature as it reveals that it is possible for business to incorporate positive duty into its core economic activities without compromising its financial gains and that the economic-aligned and dutyaligned orientations can be integrated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs on Corporate Purchasers’ Intention to Purchase From Women-Owned Enterprises

2010

Business & Society

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“…In doing so, our research contributes to a small but important literature in business ethics that seeks not only to analyze differences between normative and empirical research (e.g., De Los Reyes et al, 2017;Singer, 1998; but also to incorporate normative scholarship into empirical research. Koehn (2020: 257), for example, has argued that recent trends in economics, such as behavioral economics, risk "creating harm or producing bad habits" unless they avail themselves of "ethical discernment."…”

Section: Role Of Normative Scholarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our efforts to fruitfully combine prescriptive and descriptive research perhaps most resemble the “meaningful dialogue” that Singer (1998: 482) attempts to construct between these disciplines. Unlike many earlier efforts to investigate and offer strategies for bridging the descriptive–prescriptive divide, we do not aim, primarily, to analyze differences between empirical and normative research or to propose strategies for reconciling them.…”

Section: Foundations Of Norm Confusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, our research contributes to a small but important literature in business ethics that seeks not only to analyze differences between normative and empirical research (e.g., De Los Reyes et al, 2017; Singer, 1998; Treviño & Weaver, 1994; Weaver & Treviño, 1994) but also to incorporate normative scholarship into empirical research. Koehn (2020: 257), for example, has argued that recent trends in economics, such as behavioral economics, risk “creating harm or producing bad habits” unless they avail themselves of “ethical discernment.” Kim, Monge, and Strudler (2015), in turn, have argued that normative scholars should play a role in empirical research that appears to criticize normative theories, such as empirical accounts of “bounded ethicality.” This view holds that businesspeople are psychologically unable to fulfill many of the moral obligations that normative theorists seek to assign to them.…”

Section: Future Research: Redirecting Norm Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When Are Norms Prescriptive? Understanding and Clarifying the Role of Norms in Behavioral Ethics Research

Scharding,

Warren

2023

Bus. Ethics Q.

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Research on ethical norms has grown in recent years, but imprecise language has made it unclear when these norms prescribe “what ought to be” and when they merely describe behaviors or perceptions (“what is”). Studies of ethical norms, moreover, tend not to investigate whether participants were influenced by the prescriptive aspect of the norm; the studies primarily demonstrate, rather, that people will mimic the behaviors or perceptions of others, which provides evidence for the already well-substantiated social proof theory. In this review article, we delineate three streams of norms research in business ethics: behavioral, perceptual, and prescriptive. We argue that by properly categorizing norms, and designing studies to investigate when prescriptions, more than mere mimicry, improve ethical outcomes in organizations, researchers can enhance managers’ efforts to promote ethical outcomes in organizations.

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“…The other is focused on normative issues, asking “what is the right thing to do?” and aiming to provide normative reflections and orientations for business. To be sure, there are echoes here of debates within the field that fuel or reject this bifurcation dating back decades (e.g., Donaldson 1994; Frederick 1994; Freeman 1994; Sandberg 2008; Singer 1998; Trevino and Weaver 1994; Werhane 1994), as well as of the foundational disciplines of philosophy and the social sciences.…”

Section: Aims and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue on: Normativity in Business Ethics and Beyond

2023

Bus. Ethics Q.

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The purpose of this special issue is to address fundamental questions about a possible deficit of normativity in management research, practice, and education-especially as it relates to the field of business ethics and its neighboring disciplines, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. Questions regarding the role of normativity are familiar in many respects and have been the subject of long-standing debates in BEQ (e.g., with respect to the "separation thesis"). These questions are of renewed importance, if not urgency, against the backdrop of 1) the so-called grand challenges (George et al. 2016) and 2) the meteoric rise of dominantly descriptively and functionally oriented CSR and sustainability research and teaching.By "normativity" in this context, we refer to explicit and implicit values-driven decision-making that is action guiding (i.e., prescriptive). The domain of the normative covers all forms of business decisionmaking, such as addressing systemic injustice, grand societal challenges, organizational narratives, institutional arrangements, corporate purposes, economic optimization norms, broader systemic design, and the decisions of individual managers. We seek different perspectives on the possible deficit of normativity in business, including alternative views suggesting that the problem is overstated or concern is misplaced. Aims and ScopeWe aim to take stock of the perceived decline in normativity in the field of business ethics (within which we include "micro" or individual-level behavioral ethics research and the neighboring fields of CSR and sustainability) and consider its implications for the field and beyond. Concern about the role of normativity in business ethics ranges over questions about the adequacy or usefulness of research that disregards normative considerations or implications, empirical research that does not come clean about normative presuppositions, empirical methods that squeeze out normative methods, and instrumental "business cases" that dominate ethics teaching. Fundamentally, these concerns reflect uncertainty, if not disagreements, about the identity of the field writ large.Although we applaud the growing interest in business ethics-both as a field in itself and as the subject of research in other fields-we are concerned about recent developments, especially the apparent entrenchment of two camps in the field of business ethics. One is empirically oriented, investigating issues of CSR and sustainability of various kinds, often with largely managerial and instrumental intentions. The other is focused on normative issues, asking "what is the right thing to do?" and aiming to provide normative reflections and orientations for business. To be sure, there are echoes here of debates within the field that fuel or reject this bifurcation dating back decades (e.g., Donaldson 1994;

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Paradigms Linked: A Normative-Empirical Dialogue about Business Ethics

Cited by 16 publications

References 45 publications

The Impact of Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs on Corporate Purchasers’ Intention to Purchase From Women-Owned Enterprises

The Impact of Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs on Corporate Purchasers’ Intention to Purchase From Women-Owned Enterprises

When Are Norms Prescriptive? Understanding and Clarifying the Role of Norms in Behavioral Ethics Research

Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue on: Normativity in Business Ethics and Beyond

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