Historical Study of the Research and Education of Business Ethics in the United States.

Research Project

Project/Area Number	10630121
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Business administration
Research Institution	MEIJI UNIVERSITY
Principal Investigator	NAKAMURA Mizuho School of Commerce/Meji University/Prof., 商学部, 教授 (80061878)
Project Period (FY)	1998 – 2000
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2000)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000) Fiscal Year 2000: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1999: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1998: ¥400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥400,000)
Keywords	business ethics / business ＆ society / social responsiveness / ethical issues / stakeholders / case study / institutionalization / 企業倫理研究 / 企業倫理教育 / 企業倫理的課題事項 / business ethics / Business and Society / Academy of Management / ビジネス・エシックス / 利害関係者論 / 事例分析 / 応用倫理学 / 規範論的接近 / 経験理論的接近
Research Abstract	This research project over a three years period has reviewed the development of research and education of business ethics in the United States. Business ethics have been studied mainly in two academic fields. One is "business and society" (B&S) or "social issues in management" (SIM) as a division of management study. Another is "business ethics" as a division of applied ethics. In the United States, both fields began to study business ethics in the middle of l970s, and the cooperation between them progressed favourably. As a result, the so-called institutionalization of the study of business ethics as a field of academic investigation was achieved by 1985. On the other hand, in Japan, awareness of the importance of business ethics in the contemporary world has still been very meager notwithstanding freequent occurrence of business scandals in recent years. Such a situation is considered to have been caused by several components of so-called "Japanese style of business management" that have long persited. Facing with the globalization of business activity, Japanese society has to take lessons from the history of the development of business ethicss in the United Stetes. To put it briefly, the major components of the research and education of business ethics in the United States are the epirical research of business practices, the analysis and development of cases in business ethics, the concept of issues in business ethics, stakeholder approach to studying business ethics, the case study as a method of teaching, and the institutionalization of business ethics (that is, installing various ways to internalize values in the corporation so that ethical behavior can spring from within)