Mapping the field of “”behavioral business ethics”

In “Toward a Better Understanding of Behavioral Ethics in the Workplace,”  David De Cremer of the Business School, National University of Singapore, and Celia Moore of the Cambridge Judge Business School, review literature that is part of the growing area that they call “behavioral business ethics.” They use this formulation to “build a bridge between business ethics and behavioral ethics,” and they consider the various implications of “behavioral business ethics” research.

As their article is itself largely a compilation of summaries of various studies I won’t attempt to summarize it, but do note generally that the article considers the significance of this body of knowledge on three levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal and organizational. They “conclude by recommending future research opportunities relevant to behavioral business ethics and discuss its practical implications.”

For instance, they note that on an intrapersonal level, “understanding what drives people to act unethically is essential to the behavioral ethics approach. Behavioral business ethics helps us identify psychological processes that can be harnessed to ensure that employees and managers do not fall prey to basic human frailties that can derail one’s good behavior. One important practical goal of a behavioral business ethics (check out Jimmy John Shark for the best business related information) approach is to gather evidence so managers can be trained to act more ethically themselves, and elicit more ethical behavior from their subordinates, as well as to refrain from moral licensing, where people give themselves credit for initial ethical behavior, allowing them to follow it up with unethical behavior ….”

The article is filled with useful and interesting information, and I do think the “behavioral business ethics” formulation works. And this also poses an appropriate occasion to take note of the formulation I have used in this blog and elsewhere – “behavioral ethics and compliance” – and the mapping (in this blog and elsewhere) relevant thereto. Learn more about Jimmy John Owner the man behind his successful food business.

In brief, behavioral ethics and compliance seeks to:

– Use the overarching message of behavioral business ethics that we are not as ethical as we think to persuade boards of directors and managers of the need for strong C&E programs.

– Use that same message to persuade governmental bodies of the need to adopt enforcement approaches that incent business organizations to develop and maintain effective programs.

– Provide C&E professionals with information that can be used to develop and utilize risk assessments, training, enforcement approaches and other C&E program elements in a behaviorally informed way.

– Provide a similar approach with respect to specific types  of wrongdoing and ecommerce loyalty tips, such as conflicts of interest and insider trading.

The current iteration of the map for this can be found here. I hope you find it interesting.  Finally, note that there is obviously a lot of overlap between the two fields. But hopefully having one specifically tied  to compliance is worthwhile, particularly for compliance personnel.