Read more
"The essays by Joseph Heath collected in this volume collectively present a program in business ethics that he calls the "market failures" approach. They develop a theoretical framework that lies between two opposing positions in business ethics -- on one hand the "stakeholder" theory, which identifies moral obligations within an organization by identifying its key groups, and the self-explanatory "shareholder primacy" theory. Heath's "market failures" approach lies between these approaches and argues that firms should be guided by the ideal of a perfectly competitive market, and that ethical behavior in this context consists primarily in refraining from taking advantage of imperfections in existing markets. Heath's approach puts particular emphasis on the market as a competitively structured interaction, with different duties owed to individuals inside and outside the firm, and explains why business managers cannot have fiduciary responsibilities toward every stakeholder group. His theory draws on recent work in adversarial ethics, welfare economics, agency theory, and the theory of the ferm, in order to provide an account of business ethics that can be integrated with recent thinking about corporate law and the normative basis of state regulation of the economy"--
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part 1: The Corporation and Society
- 1. A Market Failures Approach to Business Ethics
- 2. Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management (with Wayne Norman)
- 3. Business Ethics Without Stakeholders
- 4. An Adversarial Ethic for Business: or, When Sun-Tzu met the Stakeholder
- 5. Business Ethics and the 'End of History' in Corporate Law
- Part 2: Cooperation and the Market
- 6. Contractualism: Micro and Macro
- 7. Efficiency as the Implicit Morality of the Market
- 8. The History of the Invisible Hand
- 9. The Benefits of Cooperation
- Part 3: Extending the Framework
- 10. The Uses and Abuses of Agency Theory
- 11. Business Ethics and Moral Motivation: a Criminological Perspective
- 12. Business Ethics After Virtue
- 13. Reasonable Restrictions on Underwriting
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Joseph Heath is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy as well as the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto. He is the author of numerous scholarly works, including Communicative Action and Rational Choice (2001) and Following the Rules (2008). In 2012 he was appointed a fellow of the Trudeau Foundation.
Summary
In four new and nine previously published essays, Joseph Heath provides a compelling new framework for thinking about the moral obligations of economic actors. The "market failures" approach to business ethics that he develops provides the basis for a unified theory of business ethics, corporate law, economic regulation, and the welfare state.
Additional text
...the book is well worth engaging by anyone interested in economics, agency theory, fiduciary concerns, public policy, corporate governance, and of course, business ethics. Heath is to be commended for this provocative book, explaining a provocative approach to business ethics (market failures approach) that sees as its guiding star the always elusive Pareto-optimal market conditions. I know it has informed my own approach to how I will teach stakeholder theory, theory of the firm, and competition in future courses.
