An investigation of ethical dilemmas and entrepreneurial behavior in established firms (original) (raw)
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Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine ‘‘what is right’’. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entreprene...
A focus on short-term profit as an exclusive measure of business success has led to an erosion of stakeholder trust and opened the door for ethical misconduct. This study identified the values, beliefs, and experiences in the background of business leaders and led to the development of a process for decision making in which stakeholder interest is considered. This phenomenological study, grounded in the institutional theory, addressed how an ethical interpretive framework becomes institutionalized. The research question explored the attributes of decision making when there are ethical implications affecting stakeholders. Data were collected by interviewing 20 middle-to senior-level corporate leaders in the eastern half of the United States. The data were coded to identify themes, which were then analyzed. Four themes emerged: (a) honesty and integrity in interactions that are internal and external to the company; (b) doing the right thing, the right way for both stakeholders and the company; (c) weighing the benefits and risks to stakeholders and the company; and (d) transparency when acting and communicating. This research study was designed to assist business leaders with decision making when there are ethical implications affecting stakeholders that may result from their actions.
BUSINESS ETHICS AND STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS
Much has been written about stakeholder analysis as a process by which to introduce ethical values into management decision-making. This paper takes a critical look at the assumptions behind this idea, in an effort to understand better the meaning of ethica] management decisions. A distinction is made between stakeholder analysis and stakeholder synthesis. The two most natural kinds of stakeholder synthesis are then defined and discussed: strategic and multi-fiduciary. Paradoxically, the former appears to yield business without ethics and the latter appears to yield ethics without business. The paper concludes by suggesting that a third approach to stakeholder thinking needs to be developed, one that avoids the paradox just men* tioned and that clarifies for managers (and directors) the legitimate role of ethical considerations in decision-making.
Ethics through an entrepreneurial lens: theory and observation
Journal of Business Ethics, 2002
Recent work in the fields of ethics and entrepreneurship has raised the possibility that entrepreneurs may differ from other individuals in the moral issues they face, in their moral judgements and behaviors concerning those issues, and even in their level of cognitive moral development. While this work has been exploratory and its conclusions tentative, the findings raise two interesting questions: do entrepreneurs actually differ from non-entrepreneurs in their ethical orientations and, if so, why? We propose a model of ethical decision making for small business entrepreneurs. We suggest some ways in which the ethical framework of entrepreneurs may differ systematically from that of other business people and propose some areas for future research.