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Contextualizing Business Ethics: Anomie and Social Life

Phil Johnson

Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Ken Smith

Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University, Totley Hall Lane, Sheffield S17 4AB, United Kingdom.

The objective of this paper is to explore how the current interest in Business Ethics can be located within an analysis of contemporary society which takes into account the prevalence of moral uncertainty along with the concomitant desire to (re)establish some form of normative order. As such, Business Ethics may be seen as a socially constructed "field" of study which reflects broader changes and controversies within society. Yet as a body of knowledge, Business Ethics articulates epistemological doubts. Two distinctive themes in Business Ethics discourse are considered-the modernist/rationalist and the postmodemist/relativist. It is argued that in different ways, each can be seen as both an expression of, and a reaction to, the increasing incidence of anomie in society. The implications for organizational practices are then considered through the example of Corporate Codes of Ethics and the problem of establishing consensus where the grounds for any claim to moral authority are problematic.

Key Words: business ethics • modernism • postmodernism • anomie

Human Relations, Vol. 52, No. 11, 1351-1375 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/001872679905201101
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Human Relations, March 1, 2002; 55(3): 369 - 377.
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