EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Ubuntu and Business Ethics: Problems, Perspectives and Prospects

Andrew West (andrew.west@monash.edu)

Journal of Business Ethics, 2014, vol. 121, issue 1, 47-61

Abstract: The African philosophy of Ubuntu is typically characterised as a communitarian philosophy that emphasises virtues such as compassion, tolerance and harmony. In recent years there has been growing interest in this philosophy, and in how it can be applied to a variety of disciplines and issues. Several authors have provided useful introductions of Ubuntu in the field of business ethics and suggested theoretical ways in which it could be applied. The purpose of this paper is to extend this discussion by providing a more critical analysis of Ubuntu and business ethics with the aim of clarifying the role that Ubuntu can play, and providing guidance for further research in this area. The analysis consists of three sections. In the first, certain problems are identified within the existing literature. This is followed by a consideration of alternative perspectives and interpretations of Ubuntu. The last section, following from the first two, identifies specific areas requiring further research, both empirical and non-empirical, as well as ways in which Ubuntu could be fruitfully applied. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Ubuntu; South Africa; African philosophy; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10551-013-1669-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:121:y:2014:i:1:p:47-61

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1669-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla (sonal.shukla@springer.com) and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (indexing@springernature.com).

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:121:y:2014:i:1:p:47-61