jurnal etika bisnis

Postmodern Business Ethics - Is It Possible, Is It Relevant?

By: Tuomo Takala [biography]

INTRODUCTION

Ethics as a general philosophy and doctrine of good life and action has penetrated also the field of economic research. This application has been called business ethics. In the wide sense it concentrates on studying the practices of business life from the moral point of view. It criticizes, studies, and tries to give instructions.

ETHICS AND MORAL

Modernistic ethic doctrines explain that the typical feature of human action is its morality. Individual's action has a morally charged element, only an animal can be outside moral, human being is sentenced to morality. Ethics is a discipline which studies moral, classifying and evaluating it (descriptive ethics), or it can concentrate on giving instructions how to act in your life, normative ethics (ethics as a "discipline"). It has been said that moral is characterized by certain features, such as:

• incomparableness
• universalization
• idea of individual's welfare and happiness
• prescriptiveness
• autonomity

In the modern position of moral, it is seen to be incomparable in relation to and compared with all other action motives, principles, justifications and values. Morals differs from other valuation areas of life and is independent of them, but it also is more important than they are (see Airaksinen, p. 73).

The requirement for universality, i.e. generality, presupposes that judgements are not connected with any certain person or with his role. All people are bound by quite the same rules - and just this aspect is a typical feature of moral.

A principle is universal when it does not include surnames or certain descriptions, such as "the present managing director of Nokia" or "the best director in the world". The idea is that no reference is made to any special person but the aim is to reach the general.

Prescriptiveness, determination. The language of ethics not only describes things but, first of all, it orders man to do something, asks him to commit himself to something and demands to praise and condemn choices that have been made. Moral, for instance, condemns violent deeds and urges a person to honesty.

• Autonomity. The autonomity of moral means that moral cannot, without it leaving something behind it, be returned to any other sphere of life (to psychology or social activities), and moral judgements cannot be finally argued by using other judgements.

The theories of ethics have been classified e.g. in the following way:

• subjectivism
• objectivism
• intuitivism
• emotionalism

Business ethics can be defined as follows:

a) it is a research branch which tries to describe and explain phenomena from the moral viewpoint (empirical business ethics)

b) it gives advice and instructions about how to develop and change the practices of business life so that the human values would be materialized better than before in business life (normative business ethics)

c) it studies the relations between the good/the bad and the right/the wrong, it means, applying the meta-analysis of moral conceptions, consideration of the phenomena of business life (meta-ethics of business life)

The background for this definition has been sought for, among others, in Great Stories of ethics to which can be considered to belong e.g. the Kantian and the utilitarism.

MODERN AND POSTMODERN - BACKGROUND FOR ETHIC ORIENTATIONS

The terms "modern" and "postmodern" have become common currency in intellectual debates concerning organizational studies. The postmodern is varyingly interpreted as an "epoch", a "perspective", or a new paradigm of thought. To begin with, we could distinguish "modernity" conceptualized as the modern age from "postmodernity" as an epochal term to describe the period which allegedly follows modernity. According to Cooper and Burrell (1988), modernism is "that moment when man invented himself; when he no longer saw himself as a reflection of God or Nature. The origins of the trajectory modernism are traced back to the notion in the Age of Enlightenment of "reason" which is considered to be the highest of human attributes. Despite the opposition to systematic and critical forms of modernism - the one championing the mechanization and the other seeking for emancipation in the living world - they share the commitment to an inherently logical social world constituted by reason. In systematic modernism the rational subject is the system itself, acting according to a cybernetic discourse where reason is a privileged property distinct from its parts. In critical modernism, on the other hand, it is the knowing subject who through experiencing a network of meanings, and thus the common sense of ordinary language, reaches the consensus of human understanding. In both positions, therefore, it can be found that the assumption is considering an underlying unity that provides legitimacy and authorative logic (see Hassard 1994). In its most stark sense, postmodernism stands for the "death of reason". It has been said that we presently live our life in a postmodern society. This may be true, but what are those features that are considered typical of the postmodern mode of life and thinking? Are they:

Multiplicity of meanings. Our social life is seen to be loaded with multiple meanings. There is not only one "right" meaning which can be given to an event or a process.

The Death of Great Stories. Modernism is seen to consist of many great stories (e.g. communism in political life, enlightenment in history, abstract expressionism in visual arts, and so on. These "-isms" are said to be dead and buried, and in postmodernism there only exist short and fragmented narratives, local "small stories" opposite to old superstories.

Fragmented reality. Our life is seen to consist of many fragmented parts which do not have any interaction with each other. In modernism these interactions were clear and evident, but now the whole society is non-transparent and extremely difficult to understand.

Simulation. Lyotard has presented this concept of simulation rather well. "... There are presently more genuine things and objects, everything can be produced by artificial simulation processes, nothing is "the real thing". Everything is just copies, the slogan is: "Buy a copy, not an original." Life in virtual reality is now possible; who would need "real" reality.

Living without objective values. It is not possible to set such moral norms to any person according to which he ought to act. Everything is allowed.

Other concepts that have been used are:

• multiplicity of meanings
• great stories
• fragmentarity
• ability to be simulated
• disappearance of one's own ego
• no absolute truth appears, only "perspectives"
• irony
• citations
• imitation
• relativism

Postmodern ethics denies the importance and relevance of great stories in the world of the 1990s. It wants to be ethics of metropolis where the values and action codexes are determined without objective valuation grounds on a relative basis. Values are both born and die socially. There is no objective measure for value, and there is no need for it. Freedom from the bonds restricting the creativity of ego is a value but not in the traditional sense.

When thinking in a postmodern manner, the ethics of metropolis, i.e. big cities, is microethics which, according to Lyotard's terms, inevitably goes past the macroperspective. Ethical rules and norms are defined through the social network of threads of the microlevel, by different subcultures. Any of the "great men" of thinking, Kant, Hegel, Mill etc. does not dictate with a top-down technique those imperatives which the postmodern group ought to follow. The "top-down principle" has been compelled to make way to a horizontally forming set of principles which gets its power on the basis of the set's own functions.

Speculatively thinking, we may in the future even talk about virtual reality, virtual moral. In the uttermost case the ontology of moral has to be scrutinized from the viewpoint that the moral actor is a solidarily constituted collective subject of the virtual reality/network. Virtual reality offers an opportunity to an unpersonified moral subject, which like Nietzsche, can demand "perfect freedom because God is dead". It fits in perfectly with the unpersonified "network-self" the Cartesian principle "cogito ergo sum". A perfect solipsism comes true; as the bishop Berkeley has stated, "the outside world is only a idea in my mind". The relativistic solipsistic ontology represents the epistemological position to which also postmodernism has committed itself.

s postmodern ethics a good or a bad thing? If a person has a postmodern attitude this question may not be relevant. We can, anyhow, ask in which respect good or bad ethics, "anything suits", is a permissive attitude which is not bothered by rigoristic morality. People are not condemned because of different customs, appearance, race or complexion. The complexion is not even in network decisive, but other virtues. Postmodern ethics has, however, the weak points typical of the relativistic attitude. If a person has this kind of an attitude he does not anymore find criteria for the good and the bad. In such a case some charismatic figure (Hitler) starts to order what is good and what bad. Faith replaces critical scepticism and rational moral consideration. For its certain parts, the relativistic standpoint is unbearable, we cannot draw from it a programme which would fulfill the principle of universatility and save people's welfare and guarantee their rights. The good is only the thing which I feel good. This justifies strong egoism and, along with it, oppressing of other people and even unscrupulous destruction of our environment. Postmodern ethics cannot offer the business ethics, not at least at this stage, any clear theoretical basis from which to start.

The postmodern attitude is the property of the inhabitants in metropolis, and yet, the biggest part of the world's population lives outside metropolis, in the countryside, in development countries and in other very primitive conditions. In those places the postmodern attitude may not be possible but there ethical norms are regulated by the family, the god, the tradition etc. Postmodern business ethics is only possible in so-called new-technology firms where new working culture and customs are prevailing. A traditional firm, as for example Smith's engineering manufacture, operates according to the same ethics as it always done. The personality of the entrepreneur, the business idea, the business line, the manner how things have always been handled, dictates the basis and direction of the ethics of activities. The question whether there is economic depression or not, determines what the firm has to give to the society, as sponsor or as "good corporate citizen". If the firm has no money there is nothing to give away either. In a unilateral culture, the postmodern attitude cannot give any new, fruitful perspective, although it would be useful when analysing the phenomena of big cities.

REFERENCES

Airaksinen, T: Moral philosophy. Juva. 1987.

Burrell, G: Modernism, postmodernism and organizational analysis 2: the contribution of Michel Foucault. Organization Studies. No 9.,2, pp.221-235.

Hassard, J : Postmodern Organizational Analysis. Journal of Management Studies. 31/3. May. 1994. pp. 304 - 324

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Jurnal etika bisnis

RACISM AND BUSINESS ETHICS.

By: Teppo Sintonen [biography]

1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to examine how ethnic marginalization and racism are connected with organization culture from the point of view of business ethics. Among gender, religion, socioeconomic background and age, ethnic inequality and racism form a central part of the minority diversity of business organizations (George & Jones 2000, 12-15). As a phenomenon, racism is a complex issue that is difficult to grasp with a single approach. It encroaches upon entrepreneurship in several ways. It operates on the level of the relationship between business organizations and society and on the level of the personnel relations of organizations. Thus, racism has both individual and social dimensions. Moreover, racism - when it has got hold of the organization culture - impedes the ability of companies to make a profit and achieve their goals. The central fields in which racism causes problems are: personnel management (contentment with work conditions, workforce efficiency, career development, etc.), marketing (brands, logos, trademarks and the public images of corporations), and general profitability.

From the point of the view of business ethics, an anti-racist organization culture not only increases profits but also enhances enterprises ability to carry their communal responsibility for the society in which they operate. The business world is not an autonomous sphere disconnected from the surrounding society. On the contrary, it has a close relationship with the functioning of society and the well-being of citizens (Takala 1993, 23-31; Lämsä 1998, 59, 61-65). Thus, a racist organization culture has a negative influence on the general well-being of people. It hampers the career development of particular groups and makes it difficult for them to find jobs, excludes certain groups from economic and societal resources, and creates general tension and conflicts between different groupings. The reverse side of this is, naturally, that societal tension and instability caused by racism weaken corporations performance and their opportunities to make a profit.

2. The Conceptual Connection between Organization Culture and Racism

The theoretical aim of the paper is to develop the concept of racism so that it will become suitable for the examination of organization culture from the viewpoint of business ethics. To be able to examine the connection between organization culture and ethnic discrimination, or racism, and to develop the research topic, we shall first clarify the basic concepts.

In the business world the concept of organization culture refers to a combination of

conventional courses of action, values, norms, behaviour, and symbols that are born and develop in a particular corporation, and which have an influence on the functioning of the corporation as a whole. In a corporate organization those cultural dimensions manifest themselves in several overt features (behaviour of the personnel, logos, trademarks, constructed environment), values (the way in which societal responsibilities are understood, limitations on ways of making a profit), and self-evident basic assumptions which deal with world views, humankind and individuality. (Aaltio-Marjasola 1992, 60-64; Alvesson & Berg 1992, 61-64, 97-107)

The organization culture also contains crystallized knowledge that forms the basis for the operational strategies of the corporation. The knowledge consists of commonly held ideas about the what in a company, about the how in a company, and about improvements and reform strategies, i.e. the should ‘s in a company (Sackman 1991, 155-165). The most important issue in an organization culture is that it contains the ideas, beliefs and symbolic conceptions about the essence and course of action of the company. Furthermore, all these ideas and conceptions become manifest in material, visible and practical features. Thus, the symbolic and ideological level of the organization culture has an influence on the practical operations and functioning of a corporation by shaping the behaviour styles and conventions in an organization. 

An organization culture is not unchanging. It is dynamic and has a temporal dimension. As a tradition in general (Ricoeur 1984, 68-70), organization culture is subjected to the processes of sedimentation and innovation. The dynamic character of tradition and organization culture lies in the fact that some features are stabilized and that these stable, sedimented features make innovation possible. Thus, there is always a tension between the two processes. The possibility and potential of a learning organization is based on the dynamic relationship between sedimentation and innovation. Only a learning organization can adapt in a rational and productive manner to the changing demands of society. 

The idea of a learning organization is important, because organization culture consists of habitualized ways of thinking and patterns of ideas that hinder the development of the organization culture by making corporations stick unreflectively with conventional ways of operating. Nevertheless, the central feature of a learning organization is its desire to become aware of these usually unconscious patterns by reflecting on its own operations and functioning (Moilanen 1996, 101-106; Sarala & Sarala 1996). Only after these patterns and conceptions are made visible is it possible to learn and develop the organization culture. The general aim of the research of racism and organization culture should be the examining the patterns and conceptions that are fixed in organizations and the ways in which they are linked with racist ideologies. Moreover, the aim should also be interpreting how corporations manage with their internal and societal ethnic diversity. 

The concept of racism has been ambiguous in international studies. On the one hand it has been approached as a form of behaviour or action. The question has been: what kinds of actions and ways of behaving are racist? On the other hand, a certain ideology is regarded as the core of racism. This ideology states that the outward appearance of people (skin colour is usually the most significant feature) defines their capabilities and position in society. (Miles 1994; Isaksson & Jokisalo 1998; Banton 1998; Calhoun 1994; Goldberg 1993, 1997; Jackson & Penrose 1993; Rattansi 1994, Sintonen 1999) Thus, the field of racism is both heterogeneous and broad.

However, the starting point of this paper is that racism is understood as an ideology and a doctrine. Without recognizing the ideological component, no behaviour or action can be identified as racist; every action identified as racist should be seen as having an ideological cause or basis (Miles 1993, 1994). Furthermore, any action that is ideologically based on racism entails discriminating practices in corporations and society. Those practices typically constitute the most visible dimension of racism. Here also lies the point at which racism becomes connected with ethnic marginalization. Racist ideology produces such discriminating practices that isolate ethnic minorities from the resources provided by society and the economy.

The question is: how does the ideology of racism work? Basically it is a matter of the processes by which we produce meanings, i.e. how we understand our reality and make our world sensible. It is based on certain conventions that are learned in everyday life. These conventions direct our understanding and interpretations so that the world looks self-evident and sensible to us. Now, racism as an ideology offers us particular conventions as a means of understanding certain issues and phenomena. These conventions form the ideological content of racism. Usually, they are statements like black/white (or other) people are certain kinds of people or black/white (or other) people do something in a certain manner, etc. The ideological statements are the coordinates on which we rely in situations where there are different kinds of people.

The process of signification, particular to racism, is usually called racialization (Miles 1994, 42-47; Goldberg 1993, 46-48, 57-60). It consists of two phases. First, certain physical features become selected for marking the outline of a group. In the case of racism they are usually skin colour and some other features like the shape of nose or type of hair. These features form the code system according to which we identify and differentiate ‘races’. It is worth noticing that the process of selection of the features is based on historical events and circumstances and political power, not on any kind of biology-based natural selection. Thus, the ‘racial’ classifications are artificial, although we believe that they are natural.

Second, after we are able to identify the ‘race’ groups according to the physical features, some additional features are connected to the groupings. The additional features are cultural and psychological. They usually concern intellectual ability, behaviour patterns, and standards of morality. All of these features are understood collectively. In the racist ideology physical features are integrated with cultural and psychological ones. As a result, there is an ideology that states that people can be differentiated into ‘race’ groups and all of the members of each group share certain collective cultural and psychological features. Furthermore, the artificial connection between the physical features and cultural features becomes so transparent that we believe that it is natural. (Miles 1994, 42-47; Goldberg 1993, 46-48, 57-60)

3. The Outcome: Racism in Business

Now we can notice a certain kind of similarity between the concepts of organization culture and racism. They both emphasize the symbolic and ideological level instead of material objects or overt behaviour and action. Thus the theoretical and conceptual development of the paper have focused on the symbolic level. The point is that the kind of racialized understanding can form a part of the organization culture on the symbolic and ideological levels. Several features of the racist ideology can become sedimented into the organization culture and lie there as natural and invisible everyday knowledge. Thus the way in which this ideology works and what its effects are remain hidden and unconscious.

In the research of the ways in which racism intrudes into and is connected with business organization, the concept of organization culture can be used as an umbrella concept, within which the focus is on managerial skills and qualities, personnel managing, staff relations, public corporate image, marketing and advertising. In all of these sectors racist ideology and ethnic discrimination impede the internal operations of a corporation and have an adverse effect on the relationship between society and corporations.

The research should also be interactive in relation to the corporations. The idea of a learning organization can be tested and put into practice during the research by directing the results back to the corporations. This can be done by organizing mutual meetings with the personnel and the researchers as well as by arranging staff training days. 

References

Aaltio-Marjosola, Iiris
1992 Organisaatiot kulttuurin tuottajina ja tuotteina. Helsingin kauppakorkeakoulun julkaisuja D-168. Helsinki.

Alvesson, Mats & Per Olof Berg
1992 Corporate Culture and Organizational Symbolism. New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Banton, Michael
1998 Racial Theories. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Calhoun, Craig
1994 Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. In Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Calhoun, Craig (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

George, Jennifer M. & Gareth R. Jones
2000 Essentials of Managing Organizational Behaviour. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Goldberg, David Theo
1993 Racist Culture. Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell.
1997 Racial Subjects. Writing on Race in America. London: Routledge.

Isaksson, Pekka & Jouko Jokisalo
1998 Kallonmittaajia ja skinejä. Rasismin aatehistoriaa. Helsinki: Like.

Jackson, Peter & Jan Penrose
1993 Placing ‘Race’ and Nation. In Constructions of Race, Place and Nation. Jackson, Peter& Jan Penrose (ed.). Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.

Lämsä, Anna-Maija
1998 Hyötyä, velvollisuuksia ja tunteita -Johtajien kokemuksia henkilöstön irtisanomisesta. Jyväskylän yliopiston taloustieteellinen osasto. Julkaisuja N:o 115/1998.

Miles, Robert
1993 Racism After ‘Race Relations’. London: Routledge.
1994 Rasismi. Tampere: Vastapaino.

Moilanen, Raili
1996 Oppiva organisaatio -Tausta ja käsitteistö. Jyväskylän yliopiston taloustieteellinen osasto. Julkaisuja N:o 100/96.

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Jurnal Etika bisnis

DARWIN AND ETHICS: USING NATURAL SELECTION TO UNDERSTAND ETHICAL BUSINESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

By: Shawn P. Daly, Minna Marita Mattila

Introduction

The origins of ethics and morality have been considered for many, many years. From ancient Greek metaphysicians to the great theologians of the Middle Ages to modern philosophers, different systematic frameworks have been developed to understand how and why ethics are formed. These frameworks provide people and organizations with guidance about how to act toward other humans and institutions in their environment. Steiner and Steiner (1991) discuss six different primary sources for understanding the development of ethics: religious, philosophical, cultural, legal, codes of conduct, and genetics (see Table). Of these six systems, the genetic framework is clearly the least developed, least explored, and least utilized. This is especially true in terms of understanding ethical behavior of modern business people and organizations. 

Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the genetic (Darwinian) paradigm of ethical behavior in more detail. To do this, we will present a brief history of how the biological sciences and evolutionary thought has formulated a coherent view of the development of an ethical code of conduct. Next, the most recent development in this research stream – evolutionary psychology and social exchange – is used to connect the natural selection paradigm to the realm of business ethics and behavior. Empirical support and behavioral examples are given in both the areas of inter-personal and inter-organizational ethics.

Table: Comparison of Ethical Systems

A Short History of Evolutionary Ethics

Maienschein and Ruse (1999) provide a wonderful collection of articles dedicated to describing the history of evolutionary ethics. In the first essay, Lennox (1999) examines how Aristotle sought to explain human virtue as the interaction between "practical intelligence" and nature. Ethics is explained as the discovery of what behaviors were useful and successful in everyday life. Aristotle also brought up the comparison with animals. That is, if humans have the capacity to adjust to the environment, must not animals? This train of thought, the maturation of ethics from animals to humans, became the focus of 17th and 18th century evolutionary thinking (Sloan 1999).

As Darwinism began to take shape, various biologist/philosophers, including Lamarck, Buffon, and St.-Pierre, came to the conclusion that this "biological transformism" must have started with plants and animals, achieving its ultimate form in humans (Sloan 1999). This ultimate formulation of virtue required both rationality and societal structures (language, education, and socialization). These philosophers argued that reason is crucial for the development of ethics because it allows for deviation from mere determinism. That is, ethics and virtue have no meaning when organisms behave solely in accordance with dictates from their biology (either genetic or autonomic systems).

Ethical philosophers in the 20th century were focussing on the societal component of building ethics (Farber 1999). This school of thought stated that the key element was the passing on of successful (virtuous) behavior from parents to children. In the view of Lanessan, the social prosperity of the higher social classes represents successful outcomes, and so the behavior of these classes needed to be emulated by all. Similarly, Nietzsche had his heroic view of human cultural evolution, through a competitive struggle between not only individuals, but also cultures and societies (Gayon 1999).

By the mid-20th century, Huxley argued that out of interactions between individuals and organizations, efficient and effective societies would be created for dealing with the economic and social problems of the day. Thus, there may be no absolute standards, but only relative norms that arise in different situations and circumstances (Ruse 1999). 

Evolutionary Psychology and Social Exchange

Unfortunately, this literature stops short of making a strong connection to business and organization ethics. The crucial "last" step of this research stream is the relatively recent development of the theory of evolutionary psychology. Tooby and Cosmides (1989) suggest an evocative logic for understanding the origins of cooperative behavior, a Darwinian adaptive process they have labeled evolutionary psychology. Cosmides and Tooby (1989) believe conditions in the Pleistocene era forced hunter-gatherers of this era to engage in social exchange. The essence of this social exchange is that self-oriented behavior must be balanced with altruistic behavior. In social exchange there is an implicit agreement between the actor and the other party that the actor will (at an unspecified time in an unspecified manner) receive a benefit for acting in the other party’s interest. 

But how do individuals determine if they are being treated fairly? Given the difficult circumstances of monitoring social exchange (due to differences in the timing and form of return benefit), significant management and monitoring problems are created. The nature of these information-processing problems in social exchange may have forced our ancestors to develop efficient mechanisms for optimizing cooperative social exchange. Cosmides and Tooby (1989) hypothesize that the optimal strategy may be to catch cheaters who fail to reciprocate their end of a social contract. In fact, the "logic" applied in catching cheaters breaks the laws of formal logic; that is, people use an intuitive sense of what is fair or honest in any given circumstance. The key element of the social exchange cheating logic is learning to infer a partner's intention to cheat.

In a series of experiments, Cosmides (1989) showed that the intuitive search for cheaters more accurately described the outcomes than other types of reasoning. Thus, Tooby and Cosmides (1989) suggest a Darwinian origin for the development of relational exchanges and the paradigm of monitoring exchange behavior by assessing the fairness of the partner's activities and actions. Fairness in exchange is measured by what is normal in a given society. Thus each society develops its own relational norms – its ethics. The group (or culture or species) succeeds by creating rules that promote its continuation. Cooperation implies high degrees of altruism, which becomes the societal norm. Individuals who violate this norm are thrown out of the group and so are less likely to hunt and gather sufficient amounts of food to live and reproduce. Thus, individuals succeed (as measured by their ability in passing on their genes to the next generation) by obeying the rules of the group.

Business Ethics Applications

So what does the evolutionary psychology paradigm say about business ethics. Social exchange is at the very heart of both organizational behavior (transactional vs. relational leadership) and marketing science (facilitation of exchange). By dividing the arena of ethics into two categories, inter-personal and inter-organizational behavior, this partition allows us to examine not only the way individuals behave, but also the organizations and institutions within which they operate.

Personal Ethics

Managers use this highly refined sense (developed over thousands of years) for discovering cheating in their everyday business affairs. Executives need to understand the underlying level of cooperative intent of others, i.e., ethical behavior. This manifests itself in negotiations, burden sharing, and other strategic and tactical concerns, where managers can let their intuition catch "cheaters". By engaging in ethical behavior, managers put out signals that encourage others to engage in cooperative efforts. This allows the ethical manager to become in a wider range of inter-personal contacts and engage in potentially more valuable exchanges. In addition, the ethical manager avoids potential alarms put out by the finely honed "cheating discovery" skill. 

These encouragements to cooperate and the development of teamwork within the organization are very much related to the development of leadership. In the leadership literature, the concept of transformational leadership (Bass 1985) is most easily connected to this discussion. In transformational leadership, the leader inspires the followers through concern for individual subordinates. Without consistency of purpose and action, plus the creation of an environment of trust, managers are unable to foster cooperation within the organization and so are more likely to fail (Hershey et al 1996). 

Since a strong ethical grounding should cause managers to behave consistently and fairly toward their subordinates and others in the environment, one would expect that these managers should be better able to gain the cooperation of the employees. Thus, the ethical manager should succeed in organizational tasks and thereby rise in their organizations. In addition, as these individuals rise in their organizations, they should grow to value ethical behavior in themselves and others. This would likely lead to a situation where the selection process is also based on personal ethical attitudes and behaviors in organizations. 

Unfortunately, there is very little data on the values/behaviors of leaders and its impact on organizational effectiveness and their rise in their organizations (Hall 1999, p. 140). One interesting empirical study that tends to confirm the connection between ethics and outcomes is that of Frese and Cadden (1999). Their survey of Quinnipiac College (USA) alumni found that the higher the respondent’s rank or status in their organization, the more important they believed business ethics was for personal and institutional success. This association implies that the selection process for managers rewards ethical behavior. 

Organizational Ethics

But how do organizations and institutions feel ethical selective pressure? As Friedman (1970) has so eloquently pointed out, the purpose of corporations is to make money. If we treat organizations as living organisms (Morgan 1996) which require the input of financial resources, then it is easy to imagine an environmental ecology developing. Organisms (organizations and institutions) which do not collect sufficient inputs from the environment eventually do not survive. Where do the inputs come from? Usually through interaction with other organizations in the environment. Appropriate outputs (goods and services) are rewarded by sufficient inputs (financial, technical, etc.). 

Returning to the social exchange model, those firms that can develop superior outputs through cooperation (marketing channels, joint ventures, alliances, and networks) grow through increased inputs. Eventually, these organizations can out-compete the other firms. Moore (1996) talks about capturing territory and fighting for control of the ecosystem in the way of animal predators. Successful firms eventually are renewed in the struggle or die off as the environment changes around them.

Unfortunately, just as in our discussion of personal ethics above, there is little directly applicable research to examine the proposition that ethics leads to higher performance. However, evidence for the success of cooperative inter-firm behavior comes from a number of tangential sources. On an abstract level, there is the now-famous computer simulation (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981) where computer programs were pitted against one another in a series of "prisoner’s dilemmas". That is, where cooperation was favored against self-oriented behavior. The winner of that competition: "tit-for-tat", a program that assumed the partner is acting in the collective interest and only retaliated after the partner acted in self-interest! 

Less abstractly, support for the value of virtuous behavior comes from the rise of "relationship marketing". Relationship Marketing has become the dominant paradigm in the inter-firm relationship literature over the past 20 years. An accepted definition of relationship marketing is "those business activities which are aimed at increasing the mutual value of future transactions, but are detached from valuation within current transactions" (Daly 1997). As soon as the valuation is separated from the present transaction, then there is a degree of altruism involved. Thus we can think about ethics as the balance between (immediate) self-oriented behavior and (longer-term) altruism. This balance is the essence of cooperation between individuals, and especially among firms, given the very long time frames and wide geography over which firms often operate.

Why is the rise of relationship marketing important for ethics? It implies that the most successful firms are those which treat other firms fairly and equitably in a way that maximizes the value for all firms involved in the transaction. An anecdotal example of this phenomenon is the comparison between General Motors and the Ford Motor Company. General Motors is famous for its confrontational and (immediately) self-motivated behavior toward suppliers and other firms in the value chain. In contrast, Ford provides expertise and other resources to firms in its supplier network either free of charge or with only the most vague promise of future reward. Results: relationships with suppliers that have pushed Ford to become consistently the most profitable automobile manufacturer in the world, likely soon to pass GM as the largest as well. General Motors has seen a three-decade slump in market share and profitability and whose supply chain relationships are in tatters. Much of this success is often attributed to the supply chain management techniques employed at Ford.

Utility and Practicality

The utility of this ethical system for practitioners is that the natural selection paradigm puts ethics in a simply understood form – behave "properly" or face extinction, either on a personal or organizational level. The concepts of norms, codes, and rules are very well developed in most schools of business, but they have often have limited impact on the thinking of practicing managers. Why? When one examines the other sources of ethics, the negative consequences of non-ethical behavior are often unimportant to many business people. Consider the negative consequences for unethical behavior in each system (see Table). To many executives, the reality of the negative consequences in each of the other ethical systems may be limited. The consequences may be considered either: very distant and abstract (religion, philosophy, and cultural), or be considered very unlikely (through the legal system and organizational censure).

But what of those (very commonly found) managers who do not fear the wrath of God, are unconcerned with the plight of their fellow man, don’t care about society, and don’t believe that either the law or their organizations really enforce ethics? It may be possible to convince these executives of "serious" consequences in the here and now – the crippling or extinction of their organization, along with the destruction or handicapping of their personal career. This makes teaching, mentoring, developing, and fostering ethical behavior much easier in the modern business world. This would be the true value of the natural selection paradigm in ethics today.

Conclusions

Historically, the natural selection paradigm has been far less developed than the other schools of thought, especially in terms of business and organization ethics. This paper has utilized evolutionary psychology to connect marketing and management science to ethics via the explicit connection of social exchange. Not only does evolutionary psychology help the study of ethical and cooperative behavior; it will also be beneficial in any research that claims exchange as its theoretical foundation. Two examples are given in this paper: organizational behavior (leadership) and inter-organizational behavior (marketing channels and supply chains). The division of behavior into personal and organizational ethics is especially important considering that these two levels of ethics interact through the organizational codes of conduct and the institutional rule of law within which many individuals have to act. Which of course are in turn built through their individual actions.

But most importantly, one of the primary claims of a "modern-day" evolutionary ethics is that by acting morally or ethically, both individuals and organizations are more effective and successful. Clearly, there is much data collection and confirmatory work to done before such a hypothesis can be accepted. But in the present work some associative and anecdotal evidence has been put forth to support this proposition. If in the future data could be generated which unequivocally demonstrated this effect, the natural selection system of ethics could clearly have great practical significance.

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