Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T12:58:59.804Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Prisoners of the Prisoner's Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Abstract

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a popular device used by researchers to analyze such institutions as business and the modern corporation. This popularity is not deserved under a certain condition that is widespread in college education. If we, as management educators, take seriously our parts in preparing our students to participate in the institutions of a democratic society, then the Prisoner's Dilemma—as clever a rhetorical device as it is—is an unacceptable means to that end. By posing certain questions about the prisoners in the Prisoner's Dilemma, I show that management educators have created a Prisoners Dilemma, whereby they intellectually imprison themselves and their students by continuing to appeal to the Prisoner's Dilemma. These questions are not encouraged by the advocates of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Axelrod, R., The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984).Google Scholar
Camerer, C., “Redirecting Research in Business Policy and Strategy,Strategic Management Journal, 6, 1 (1985): 115.Google Scholar
Dixit, A. and Nalebuff, B., Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991).Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. and Dunfee, T., “Towards a Unified Conception of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory,Academy of Management Review, 19 (1994): 252284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evan, W. and Freeman, R. E., “A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation: Kantian Capitalism,” in Beauchamp, T. and Bowie, N., eds., Ethical Theory and Business, Third Edition, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987): 97106.Google Scholar
Frank, R., Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988).Google Scholar
Gless, D. and Smith, B. H., eds., The Politics of Liberal Education (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Lewis, D., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969).Google Scholar
Maitland, I., “The Structure of Business and Corporate Responsibility,” in Sethi, S. P. and Falbe, C., eds., Business and Society: Dimensions of Conflict and Cooperation (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1987): 162176.Google Scholar
McMillan, J., Games, Strategies, and Managers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Miller, J. B., Toward a New Psychology of Women, Second Edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Murninghan, J. K., The Dynamics of Bargaining Games (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991).Google Scholar
Oster, S., Modern Competitive Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Parkhe, A., “Strategic Alliance Structuring: A Game Theoretic and Transaction Cost Examination of Interfirm Cooperation,Academy of Management Journal, 36, 4 (1993): 794829.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poundstone, W., Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb (New York: Doubleday, 1992).Google Scholar
Rawls, J., Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Schotter, A., The Economic Theory of Social Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar
Sinclair, U., The Jungle (New York: Doubleday, 1906).Google Scholar
Stark, A., “What's the Matter With Business Ethics?,Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1993: 3848.Google Scholar
Taylor, C., The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Wolgast, E., The Grammar of Justice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).Google Scholar