Sandra L. Christensen

Ethical decision making in times of organizational crisis: A framework for analysis

The article describes a framework that identifies event, organizational, and individual factors that threaten ethical decision making in organizations facing discrete crises or in an ongoing crisis environment. Nine propositions are stated that predict threats to ethical decision making during crisis. A comparison between predictions from our model and from Joness (1991) model is made. Suggestions for research to test and refine the framework are proposed.

The business responsibility for wealth distribution in a globalized political-economy: Merging moral economics and catholic social teaching

If it is accepted that the real marketplace does not necessarily distribute wealth in the manner that the ideal market would have done, and that societal institutions have an obligation to bring the real and ideal market distributions into accord, then it can be argued that economic actors have a responsibility to consider the effects of their activities on the distribution of wealth in society. This paper asserts that businesses have a responsibility to consider the wealth distribution effects of their wealth-creating decisions. We use arguments from moral economics and Catholic social teaching to support this assertion, deriving decision principles that we apply to the Starbucks fair trade coffee case.

Teaching business ethics: Integrity

This article offers a background of ethical theory and practice that has led the authors to develop a new game as an aid to teaching business ethics. The literature on teaching business ethics points out the dearth of work on integrity in business. This article argues that it is integrity that is at the heart of business ethics and that there is a clear need for a game that helps instructors reach that very slippery concept.

The Slippery Slope

The purpose of THE SLIPPERY SLOPE© is to expose participants to a complex process of how individuals and firms deal with ethical issues in business. This experiential game is being developed as a response to continued corporate unethical and often illegal decision making, coupled with perceptions that there is increased cheating in schools across the United States.

Justice and Financial Market Allocation of the Social Costs of Business

Regulation is often applied to business behavior to ensure that the social costs of doing business are included in the cost and pricing structures of the firm. Because the consumer benefits from the transaction that generated the social costs, asking the consumer to bear the burden imposed by the transaction is fair. However, there may be a lack of Justice m the internal and external distribution of the social costs of doing business if consumers are the only party bearing that burden, or if the costs are being shifted to employees or taxpayers when a closer stakeholder is also benefiting from the transaction – the stockowner. A social justice perspective requires that those benefiting from a transaction share in the burdens of it. We propose that a Tobin-like tax on stock transactions might be a just means of achieving greater justice in the distribution of the social cost burden.

A THEORY OF MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS OF MULTICULTURALISM IN PERSONAL, SOCIETAL, AND ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS.

Using functionalist sociology and conflict theory, a theory of attitudes towards multiculturalism is presented. It explains attitudes towards multiculturalism by exploring interpretations of its me...