Competing with Integrity: Richard De George and the Ethics of Global Business

Excerpt

As one of the leading contemporary founders and leading thinkers in business ethics, Richard De George has delved into many important topics. One of his more significant contributions is in the field of international business ethics. The contemporary thinking in business ethics began in the 1970s in the United States. However, because contemporary business ethics began in the United States, many of the early writers in the field, with the notable exception of Tom Donaldson, (see Donaldson 1989), focused their efforts primarily on ethical issues in corporate commerce in this country. De George was another of the exceptions. Under the leadership of De George, the University of Kansas sponsored one of the earliest conferences in the field. He was an early member of the European Business Ethics Network and founder and first president of the International Society for Business, Economics and Ethics (ISBEE). De George (1993) published Competing with Integrity in International Business [hereafter abbreviated CI] and a follow-up essay presented to the Society for Business Ethics when he was President (reprinted in Donaldson and Werhane, 1996), “International Business Ethics and Incipient Capitalism: a Double Standard?”(IBEE) Later, following a speech in 1996, later published in 1997, he wrote “Human Rights and the Multinational Enterprise, Revisited,” (HR) which spelled out his theory of the applicability of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights for multinational corporate enterprises (MNCs). In these texts, he recognizes the expansion of free enterprise into global markets and acknowledges the urgency of dealing with business ethics on a global level. For these efforts, academicians and practitioners are especially indebted. It is on these works that I shall focus attention in this essay. …