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Business Ethics

Business Ethics

Although some have argued that "there is no separate ethics for business", there has been a considerable growth in interest in ethical problems as they relate to the world of business. Many institutions (including the University of Western Ontario) offer courses in business ethics and over a decade ago 72% of the executives polled indicated that business ethics should be in the curriculum ("Business Ethics New Appeal", The New York Times, December 11, 1983, p.4).

The purpose of this guide is to direct you to books and articles that relate to the subject of business ethics.

Bibliographies Books Articles Web Sites

BIBLIOGRAPHIES:

Business Ethics and Responsibility: An Information Sourcebook, Patricia Ann Bick.
The entries in this work are annotated and cover both books and journals. Coverage is broad and topics are easy to locate. The book is divided into a dozen sections covering a large number of subjects. An Appendix lists the "Sullivan Principles" which, of course, relate to trading with South Africa. The list above is not comprehensive.

Keyguide to Information Sources in Business Ethics, Francis P. McHugh.
This book was published in England and it differs somewhat from the usual bibliography in that there is considerable narrative. The first section provides a broad overview of the history of business ethics. In chapter 4 there is a helpful discussion of "case studies" and sources containing cases are listed. In chapter five, special sources are noted and there is some useful information about: codes of conduct; national/professional codes; corporate programmes and social responsibility statements. Part II contains a listing of sources (with very brief annotations) and a directory of selected organizations.

A Bibliography of Business Ethics, 1981-1985, Donald Jones & Patricia Bennett.
This bibliography is the fourth in a series published by the Center for the Study of Business Ethics at the University of Virginia. The work is organized around general topics and they are clearly listed in the table of contents. There are also subject and author indexes. Books and articles are listed, but the entries are not annotated.

A Bibliography of Business Ethics, 1976-1980, Donald Jones & Helen Troy.
This work is arranged in broad categories which include: General Works; Business and Social Responsibility; Theoretical and Applied Ethics. Under these general headings one will find specific references to issues such as: the environment, advertising, women, and whistle blowing. There is an author index, but no subject access except through the table of contents. Entries are not annotated.

A Bibliography of Business Ethics, 1971-1975, Donald Jones.
This work is similar in format to the two newer editions listed above. Subjects covered are listed in the table of contents. There is no separate subject index.

A Selected Bibliography of Applied Ethics in the Professions: 1950-1970 -- A Working Sourcebook with Annotations
and Indexes, Daniel Gothie.
This is the first edition of the series from the University of Virginia, subsequent editions of which are described above. Only the first portion of this work is concerned specifically with business-related ethical issues. The other sections cover law, the health sciences, engineering and government. Some entries are annotated and there is a subject index.

Ethics in Business Conduct: Selected References from the Record-Problems, Attempted Solutions, Ethics in Business
Education, Portia Christian & Richard Hicks.
This is an interesting work that covers sources published since 1900. Entries are helpfully annotated and the material is clearly arranged. There is also a subject index. In part 2 there is considerable material related to ethics in the collegiate curriculum.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Contemporary View Points, Suzanne Ontiveros, editor.
This work contains over 500 lengthy summaries of articles relating to corporate social responsibility that were published in journals between 1980 and 1986. The articles were located by searching the ABI/INFORM data base for that period. The book contains a thorough subject index. This work can be easily updated by searching ABI/INFORM on compact disc.

Social Responsibility: A Bibliography.
This annotated bibliography was published in England in 1979 by Emerson, Rowat Information Services. It is arranged by broad headings (employees, consumers, investors) and has company, author and subject indexes.

For more bibliographies on business ethics held by Western Libraries, search the catalogue for the SUBJECT Business ethics -- Bibliography.

BOOKS:

For an up-to-date list of books and e-books, search the Western Libraries catalogue for the SUBJECTs:

Books pertaining to business ethics are often scattered throughout the collection. For example, items related to moral issues in advertising will not necessarily be located near books that are dealing with ethical concerns in accounting. Nonetheless, there are a large number of books dealing with ethical matters in the HF5387 area of the stacks in the Business Library. 

ARTICLES:

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