MUST the empirical study of business ethics and values stand in the shadow of positivism? If so, does that constrain such studies to normatively sterile descriptions of purported facts? And would the methods thus employed fall short of yielding needed normative perspectives on business decisions that occasionally mean life or death, and even more often affect the quality of life, for those who feel their weight? Are the values and ethical principles that lie behind business actions so elusive, so inaccessible, so imprecise that they must remain forever in the shadowy realm of speculation and commonsense opinion, never to be liberated from positivism’s Gulag?

Various authors advocate consideration of stakeholder value concerns in organizational decision making. Brenner and Cochran (1990, 1991) propose a stakeholder theory of the firm which contains several propositions and a stakeholder value matrix. In order to begin any stakeholder model validation, an approach is needed to measure stakeholder value and influence weights. We propose a multicriteria decision modeling approach, utilizing the analytic hierarchy process, to estimate stakeholder value matrix weights. This approach is illustrated using a simplified example and suggestions are made regarding the process needed to begin to validate the stakeholder theory of the firm.

The social scientific study of ethical-unethical behavior in work organizations is in an early stage of development. This paper discusses some of the problems of conducting social scientific research in this area and explores the potential contribution of experimental research approaches. Both laboratory and field experimentation allow the investigator to test theory-based hypotheses and to study causal relations. Examples are provided of investigations that have applied these methods to the study of business ethics.

A growing number of researchers in the business ethics field have used scenarios as a data gathering technique in their empirical investigations of ethical issues. This paper offers a review and critique of 26 studies that have utilized scenarios to elicit inferences of ethical reasoning, decision making, and/or intended behavior from managerial or student populations. The use of a theoretical foundation, the development of hypotheses, various characteristics germane to the use of scenarios, population and sampling issues, and the use of statistical measures are explored and assessed. In the interest of improving scenario-based research, ten recommendations are presented to guide future scenario research.

This paper argues that the personal interview method is particularly appropriate for the kind of exploratory and complicated theory-building research that ethical decision-making, as a topic, represents at present. In doing so, it examines the key tasks of the ethics researcher, the suitability of interviews for obtaining the kind of data needed to accomplish these tasks, and the ensuing problems faced by the interview methodologist. It concludes with suggestions for enhancing the validity and reliability of interview-based ethics research.

The study assesses how a social desirability (SD) bias influences the relationship between several independent and dependent variables commonly investigated in ethics research. The effect of a SD bias was observed when a questionnaire was administered under varying conditions of anonymity and with different measurement techniques for the SD construct. Findings reveal that a SD bias is present in the majority of relationships studied, and it most frequently plays a moderating role. While the measure of SD influences the strength and type of relationship, condition of anonymity has relatively little effect on the level of SD.

Virtually every empirical inquiry of issues relevant to applied business ethics involves the asking of questions that are sensitive, embarrassing, threatening, stigmatizing, or incriminating. Accordingly, questions of this sort are likely to result in unsatisfactory outcomes: 1) many individuals will not respond; and/or, 2) many individuals will not respond candidly. An obvious objective, then, is to use a method to collect information which increases participation, provides absolute anonymity, and does not jeopardize subjects’ privacy. The randomized response technique (RRT) is a method designed to realize this promise. We provide here an overview of RRT approaches and applications which may be effectively used in empirical examinations of potentially sensitive issues in business ethics.

Business ethics is an eclectic blend of intellectual traditions that seeks to exam ine the question of “what should I do in my business relationships.” This paper attempts to widen this discussion by proposing an alternative view of the nature of ethical behaviour: ethical behaviour as a situated social accomplishment. From an ethnomethodological perspective, norms and rules have the status of interpretive aids which are used to negotiate an acceptable meaning for a situation; norms and rules are constituted by, and in part constitute, the situations in which they occur. While most work in business ethics has tended to reify ethical practices, this paper stresses the contingent and situational nature of ethical decision making. In addition to presenting an ethnomethodological perspective, this paper discusses the methodological ramifications of this perspective through an examination of three ethnographic studies of situated rule usage.

For those who, like myself, are enthusiastic advocates of normativelydriven empirical studies of business ethics and values, a display of expert knowledge concerning methods of the sort we see here is occasion for large measures of professional satisfaction. With all of their imperfections and qualifications, all of the tentativeness attached to the truths they yield, these methods (and similar others not included here) open vistas not accessible by other modes of inquiry. For these gains, scholars everywhere should be grateful.

Yet, questions nag at the back of one's mind, even as the positive accomplishments are registered.