Business Ethics

An authoritative and practical guide to business ethics, written in an accessible question-and-answer formatIn today's turbulent business climate, business ethics are more important than ever. Surveys of employees show that misconduct is on the rise. Cover stories reporting indictments, prosecutions, and penalties imposed for unethical business conduct appear almost daily. Legislatures pass requirements elevating the levels of punishment and their enforcement against corporations and individuals. Organizations face pressure to design and implement effective ethics and compliance programs. As aresult, businesses and businesspeople are increasingly worried that their conduct might cross lines that put their wealth and reputations at risk. Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know ® explains what those lines are, how not to cross them, and what to do when they are crossed. Written for both businesspeople facing real-life dilemmas and students studying ethical questions, this succinct book uniquely surveys materials from moral philosophy, behavioral science, and corporate law, and shares practical advice. Experts J.S. Nelson and Lynn A. Stout cover a wide array of essential topics including the legal status ofcorporations, major ethical traps in modern business, negotiations, whistleblowing and liability, and best practices. Written in a short question-and-answer style, this resource provides engaging and readable introductions to the basic principles of business ethics, and an invaluable guide for dealing with ethicaldilemmas.

Nelson and Stout have written a readable and eminently usable book that answers the questions that real business people—whether they are organizational leaders or middle managers or entry employees—wonder and even worry about. What's more, their answers are informed and supported by research but presented in a directly applicable manner. Most importantly, their responses are in themselves 'tools' and 'scripts' for those of us who want to behave in accordance with our best values. And the research presented here clarifies that this is most of us., This is a well-written book for anyone interested in corporations and their conduct. It's an excellent resource for students and faculty., When two prominent legal scholars put their personal stamp on the issue now galvanizing the planet, how ethics fits in with modern business, it is time to pay attention., What do we owe—if anything—to those we do business with? Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know provides pragmatic answers to tough questions, drawing on legal requirements, professional standards, and classical philosophy. It should be your go-to-guide, especially in these rapidly changing and often competitive times., This book by J. Nelson and L. Stout exhibits several virtues. First, it is accessible even to those not yet acquainted with the subject matter. It is disgraceful that intellectuals writing on business ethics tend to adopt a language that lay intelligent people cannot follow. Second, the book does not defend, in a aprioristic manner, one position over others. Rather, it clarifies pros and cons of the main theses on the subject in a balanced and fair way. Finally, this book comes out at a time characterized by the emergence of problems such as environmental degradation, pandemics, the explosion of income and wealth inequalities, problems that cannot be solved without the active intervention of businesses. Whence the great relevance of an ethical approach capable of directing their behaviour toward the common good.

J.S. Nelson is a professor of law and an expert legal advisor. She holds the first tenure-track appointment in a U.S. law school specifically to teach business ethics and develop law-school curricula around the subject. She teaches at Villanova University's Charles Widger School of Law, has a courtesy appointment at Villanova's Business School, and is a senior fellow at the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the University ofPennsylvania's Wharton School. She has received numerous awards from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, and she publishes in top law reviews and peer-reviewed journals.Lynn A. Stout was an American corporate law scholar, and a Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law at Cornell Law School. She researched and wrote about corporate law, securities and derivatives regulation, law and economics, business ethics, and prosocial behavior in relation to the law. Her other books include Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People (2011); The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Corporations First Harms Investors,Corporations, and the Public (2012); and Citizen Capitalism: How A Universal Fund Can Provide Influence and Income to All (published posthumously in 2019). She died in 2018, with this book in progress.