Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance

Corporations are under fire. Hardly a day goes by that executive conduct doesn’t appear as a topic – or, more accurately, as a problem – in the media. This leads to increased public pressure on corporations, many of whom are reacting and publicly assuming their corporate responsibility.

This book represents an introduction to and overview of the diverse aspects of the ethical challenges confronting companies today. It introduces executives, students and interested observers to the complex trends and developments in business ethics. On the one hand, this book presents industry-specific topics in ethics, and on the other provides a general, interdisciplinary survey of the ethical dimensions of management and business.

Setting the Scene.- to Ethics.- Business Ethics.- Habits of the Heart in US-American and German Corporate Culture.- Leading Self and Others.- The Importance of Leadership in Shaping Business Values.- The Servant as Leader.- The Structure of Moral Leadership.- Why Work?.- Organizational Ethics.- Organizational Integrity — Understanding the Dimensions of Ethical and Unethical Behavior in Corporations.- Enron — Pride Comes Before the Fall.- Andersen. No Fairy Tale Ending.- How to Discover and Avoid Corruption in Companies.- Business in Society.- The Path to Corporate Responsibility.- The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.- Pan-European Approach. A Conceptual Framework for Understanding CSR.- Corporate Social Responsibility at Volkswagen Group.- Historical Responsibility: Corporate Forms of Remembrance of National Socialist Forced Labour at the Volkswagen Plant.- Cross-cultural Sensitivities in Developing Corporate Ethical Strategies and Practices.- Global Corporate Ethics.- Transnational Actors and World Politics.- The UN Global Compact: The Challenge and the Promise.- Global Public Rules and Citizenship Rights: A New Responsibility of Private Business Firms?.