Business, Ethics and Peace


Book Description

This volume gathers a selection of papers presented at the International SPES Conference Business for Peace, Strategies for Hope held in Ypres in April 2014. The papers illustrate the impact of religion in peace management and present solutions and practices for corporate peace-building.




Business, Integrity, and Peace


Book Description

Ethical business behavior has an unexpected payoff: it reduces the likelihood of violence. This insight forms the basis of Business, Integrity, and Peace, first published in 2007. Academic and popular interest in the topics of corporate responsibility and 'peace through commerce' has surged. This book demonstrates that the adoption of generally accepted ethical business practices does not require wholesale changes in corporate governance. It does require, however, the development of more reflexive and self-regulating models of corporate decision-making, drawing upon three strands of existing corporate responsibility approaches: the legal, the managerial, and the aesthetic. Fort introduces the concept of Total Integrity Management, providing an integrative framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries to create ethical corporate cultures, which in turn offer the best opportunity for corporations to become instruments of peace. Business, Integrity, and Peace is an important and provocative work that will appeal to academic scholars, business leaders and policy-makers alike.




Music, Business and Peacebuilding


Book Description

Business schools are placing more emphasis on the role of business in society. Top business school accreditors are shifting to mandating that schools teach their students about the social impact of business, including AACSB standards to require the incorporation of business impact on society into all elements of accredited institutions. Researchers are also increasingly focused on issues related to sustainability, but in particular to business and peace as a field. A strong strain of scholarship argues that ethics is nurtured by emotions and through aesthetic quests for moral excellence. The arts (and music as shown specifically in this book) can be a resource to nudge positive emotions in the direction toward ethical behavior and, logically, then toward peace. Business provides a model for positive interactions that not only foster long-term successful business but also incrementally influences society. This book provides an opportunity for integration and recognition of how music (and other art forms) can further encourage business toward the direction of peace while business provides a platform for the dissemination and modeling of the positive capabilities of music toward the aims of peace in the world today. The primary market for this book is the academic audience. Unlike many other academic books, however, the interdisciplinary nature of the book allows for multiple academic audiences. Thus, this book reaches into schools of music, business, political science, film studies, sports and society studies, the humanities, ethics and, of course, peace studies.




The Ethics of War and Peace


Book Description

When is it right to go to war? When is a war illegal? What are the rules of engagement? What should happen when a war is over? How should we view terrorism? The Ethics of War and Peace is a fresh and contemporary introduction to one of the oldest but still most relevant ethical debates. It introduces students to contemporary Just War Theory in a stimulating and engaging way, perfect for those approaching the topic for the first time. Helen Frowe explains the core issues in Just War Theory, and chapter by chapter examines the recent and ongoing philosophical? debates on: theories of self defence and national defence Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus post Bellum the moral status of combatants the principle of non-combatant immunity the nature of terrorism and the moral status of terrorists. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, to aid student learning and revision. The Ethics of War and Peace is the ideal textbook for students studying philosophy, politics and international relations.




Business and Peace-Building


Book Description

In a world struggling to adapt to seismic social and environmental changes, the time is now for businesses to prioritise creating local conditions of peace. This book builds on original research foregrounding 'peace' as a core business outcome for natural resources industries. Especially in non-warlike situations where natural resources industries have exacerbated or caused conflict, foregrounding peace as a core business outcome can bring substantial benefits. Peace is a concept external and internal stakeholders understand. Consequently, research shows that when natural resources sector CSR professionals start reframing their day-to-day decisions in terms of peace outcomes, they are more likely to create efficient and cost-effective solutions to environmental, social and economic business challenges. This book provides both theory and practical suggestions for how to reframe day-to-day CSR activities of natural resources companies as peace-focused, business decisions. Especially in the remote and rural regions of the world where natural resources industries have the greatest impact, businesses can lead the way in contributing to conditions of peace while bringing much needed resources to market.




Business, Peacebuilding and Sustainable Development


Book Description

The intersection of business, peace and sustainable development is becoming an increasingly powerful space, and is already beginning to show the capability to drive major global change. This book deciphers how different forms of corporate engagement in the pursuit of peace and development have different impacts and outcomes. It looks specifically at how the private sector can better deliver peace contributions in fragile, violent and conflict settings and then at the deeper consequences of this agenda upon businesses, governments, international institutions and not least the local communities that are presumed to be the beneficiaries of such actions. It is the first book to compile the state-of-the-field in one place and is therefore an essential guide for students, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners on the role of business in peace. Without cross-disciplinary engagement, it is hard to identify where the cutting edge truly lies, and how to take the topic forward in a more systematic manner. This edited book brings together thought leaders in the field and pulls disparate strands together from business ethics, management, international relations, peace and conflict studies in order to better understand how businesses can contribute to peacebuilding and sustainable development. Before businesses take a deeper role in the most complicated and risky elements of sustainable development, we need to be able to better explain what works, why it works, and what effective business efforts for peace and development mean for the multilateral institutional frameworks. This book does just that.




Prophets, Profits, and Peace


Book Description

"This book addresses the many issues that arise when businesses locate in regions where local religions are different than the predominant religions of the organizations, a factor that potentially affects how the companies operate. It looks at contemporary business issues with a religious dimension that arise for today's managers; it considers larger implications for how to address the contradictory dimensions of religion and business; and it considers how corporations can themselves become institutions that are important to communities in creating a sustainable peace."--BOOK JACKET.




The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business


Book Description

Written by two top Business Law professors, this new title for your Legal Environment of Business Course provides a streamlined and readable text that will also include digital access to test banks and PowerPoint slides for instructors and self-assessment questions for students. Features include: Cases edited to be both succinct and comprehensible in a way that will engage Legal Environment of Business students Extensive integration of ethical material throughout the entire book, making it appropriate for courses in both Business Law and Business Ethics, as well as a course that covers both subjects Access to the eBook and an additional eBook--Ethics Vignettes, which has dozens of different examples of real life ethical situations in the business world Up-to-date information on the current state of the law in areas such as Torts, Employment Law, and Agency Test Banks and PowerPoint slides for adopters and self-assessment questions for students




Activist Business Ethics


Book Description

“The truth can wait, for it lives a long life” (Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, 1788-1860) The philosopher Schopenhauer believed in the eventual triumph of truth, despite the disappointments engendered by his indifferent contemporaries. Two centuries later, we live in a time of accelerated changes, and we do not have the long life to wait for the truth. Activist business ethics, business ethics with a more activist militant approach, is needed in order to remedy the wrongdoing committed to the stakeholders and minority shareholders. This will be achieved by cooperation between ethical businessmen and businesswomen, activist academics and associations of stakeholders and minority shareholders. We should treat others as we would want them to treat us, not through interest, but by conviction. Yet this principle is not the guideline of many companies in the modern business world, although most of religions and philosophers have preconized it in the last 3,000 years. How could we convince or compel modern business to apply this principle and is it essential to the success of economy? In order to answer these questions this book examines the evolution of activist business ethics in business, democracies, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and other religions, as well as in philosophy, psychology and psychoanalysis. The book examines international aspects, the personification of stakeholders, the predominance of values and ethics for CEOs and the inefficient safeguards of the stakeholders’ interests.




Clever as Serpents


Book Description

Centuries ago Thomas Aquinas remarked that there can be no joy in life if there is no joy in one's work. Drawing upon the seminal insights of Rene Girard, Clever as Serpents confronts this timeless issue of finding peace in one's work and offers practical guidance on how people, acting together, can cultivate virtuous business. Clever as Serpents provides ethical insight in business life, the job market, and office politics, revealing that business culture, while often corrupt, can be transformed through the practice of asceticism. It suggests that instead of renouncing worldly comforts and retreating to a monastery, business asceticism embraces and masters the discomforts of business life through disciplined and unique approach to the rigors of the competitive marketplace. Clever as Serpents is divided into two parts - theory and strategy. Chapters one through five deal with a unique approach to management theory and the behavior of financial markets. It first examines the myths that hide the reality of the marketplace. Chapter two examines the myth of freedom; chapter three, the myth of competition. With these myths exposed, chapters four and five examine the secret of the marketplace through the theories of borrowed desire" and the management complex. Chapters six through ten deal with practical techniques for dealing with the jungle of office politics. Chapter six relates the theory of "borrowed desire" to the dynamics of office gossip. Chapters seven through nine offer practical tips on surviving office politics, becoming successful, and redeeming the marketplace through ethical action. For the many people who experience the workplace as frustrating or unfair, struggle with office politics - as well as the question of whether their workday lives have any religious significance or spiritual depth - this work provides concrete suggestions for practicing an ethics of survival, of success, and of service. Jim Grote works in stewardship and development for a Roman Catholic archdiocese. He has taught business ethics and philosophy at several colleges and universities. Co-author ofTheology and Technology, he has written articles for the Catholic Worker, Church, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Cross Currents, and Spirituality Today. John McGeeney, an attorney for a financial services company, has worked in securities law for a Fortune 500company, and for a large social service organization in New York City. "