Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT. Business ethics in Western and Northern Europe has acquired a certain momentum during the last fifteen years, both as an academic discipline and as a point of reference in business policies. The article reports about developments in academia in various countries, and the founding of national and Europe-wide networks and organizations bringing together representatives from business as well as from universities. It presents sources of information on the state of affairs, and proposes some parameters by which the national varieties of posssible alliances between ethical thinking and business policies can be depicted more adequately. The thesis of the report is that, in order to be operational, business ethics in Western and Northern Europe has to become part of the total configuration of economic, historical and ideological components that shape the social fabric on a national level.
Europe is a patchwork of nations, cultures, and languages, even if we restrict ourselves, as I will do in this Report, to Western and Northern Europe. Business Ethics cannot remain untouched by the great variety of traditions and conditions in which it takes shape. At the same time, since for some decades Europe has been in a process of unification - economically, politically, and, to a certain extent, socially - common practices and a common understanding emerge, orienting the behavior and the basic assumptions of individuals and groups active on the European market and, from there, outside the European continent. Now, in an overview of the state of affairs of business ethics in Europe 1996, the temptation is to stress the similarities, if only for the sake of clarity. This, however, could easily lead to a rather academic picture of the field. As an academic endeavor, business ethics shows striking similarities in the various parts of the European continent, including the United Kingdom. But in practice, business ethics is part of a social configuration, consisting of a mixture of shared basic concepts, well-tested methods of moral analysis, local customs in commercial transactions and in employment policies, historically grown assumptions on fairness, decency and misdemeanor, long-term positions of power and influence, and specific market constraints and opportunities. It is therefore equally important to accentuate national and local specificities in moral thinking and acting. If we want business ethics...