Business Ethics

Peter Dauvergne states that our environmental crisis would be worse without the recent increase in corporate recycling, energy efficiency, and smart packaging. Yet he holds his applause, arguing that big business is still doing far more to destroy, than protect, our planet. In his judgment trusting big business to lead sustainability is unwise, perhaps even catastrophic. Planetary sustainability will require reining in the power of big business, starting now.

What is business for? Day one of a business course will tell you: it is to maximise shareholder profit. This single idea pervades all our thinking and teaching about business around the world but it is fundamentally wrong, Mayer argues. It has had disastrous and damaging consequences for our economies, environment, politics, and societies. In this urgent call for reform, 'Prosperity' challenges the fundamentals of business thinking. It sets out a comprehensive new agenda for establishing the corporation as a unique and powerful force for promoting economic and social wellbeing in its fullest sense--for customers and communities, today and in the future.

The authors present to students the essential concepts, ideas, and issues involved in ethics in business and emphasize the individual acting person and what it means to have character and integrity when doing business.

When Susan Fowler was told, after discovering the pervasive culture of sexism, harassment, racism, and abuse at Uber, that she was the problem, she banded together with other women to try to make change. When that didn't work, she went public. She could never have anticipated the lengths to which Uber would go in its efforts to intimidate and discredit her, the impact her words would have on Silicon Valley--and the world--or how they would set her on a course toward finally achieving her dreams.

Raj Kumar explores how nontraditional models of philanthropy and aid are empowering the world’s poorest people to make progress. Old aid was driven by good intentions and relied on big-budget projects from a few government aid agencies, like the World Bank and USAID. Today, corporations, Silicon Valley start-ups, and billionaire philanthropists are a disrupting force pushing global aid to be data driven and results oriented. The Business of Changing the World sets forth a bold vision for how we can use our vote, our voice, and our wallet to turn well-intentioned charity into effective advocacy to transform the world for good.

In the age of big data, we face a profound contradiction: on the one hand, our lives as workers, consumers, and citizens are closely monitored. On the other, big business and finance are increasingly less regulated and controllable. What does this technocratic ideology and surveillance-heavy culture reveal about the deeper reality of modern society? Monitored investigates the history and implications of this modern paradox.