ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR ETHICALLY GROUNDED ENTREPRENEURIAL DECISIONS

Bodo Runzheimer

Interdisciplinary Management Research, 2013, vol. 9, 67-80

Abstract: In order to accept entrepreneurial decisions as ethically grounded and to make them feasible in practice, certain ethical values and norms must be met as essential conditions. The concepts of morals, morality, value, norm and ethics need to be differentiated. The essential conditions for ethically grounded entrepreneurial decisions are primarily trust, responsibility, ethical rationale, viability of values, affirmation of duties i.e. obligations, and the impact of values in the sense of ethics of responsibility. Trust and responsibility are two fundamental values, “which are inextricable from entrepreneurial decision making in an ethically grounded economy” (Schweitzer, M., 2011(I), p. 77). Trust and responsibility are cornerstones of market economy, and thus bring clear advantages not only to economic operators, but also to the society as a whole. Entrepreneurial ethics implies voluntary arrangements and aims for self-commitment of the parties involved; it represents “a necessary complement and a corrective to the market and the law, and thus also to the entrepreneurial order” (Gerum, E. /Mölls, S., p. 303). Ethical codes have proved to be valuable instruments in practical implementation of ethically grounded entrepreneurial decisions; contemporary ethical codes of large and medium companies are quite modern with binding statements on Corporate Governance and Corporate Compliance. Depending on the number and weight of the fulfilled conditions in ethically grounded entrepreneurial decision making the following differentiation can be made: in case of a large number (large weight) of conditions one can speak of strongly ethically grounded (ethically perfect) decisions, or, in case of a small number (small weight) of conditions one speaks of weakly ethically grounded (ethically defect) decisions. The idea of strongly ethically grounded entrepreneurial decisions discussed here should be observed by companies, associations and legislators alike.

Keywords: trust; responsibility; rationale/ viability / impact of values as essential (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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