Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remains loosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of the individual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on the ethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty's cognitive dimensions, and treat loyalty as an individual-level construction of perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice.

Raising the issue of corporate moral agency in our examination of the morality of corporate speech is important for two fundamental reasons. Each reason suggests we exercise caution in conflating corporations and individuals as the law often does. First, raising the issue of corporate moral agency is important to the aim of providing a framework for ethically evaluating corporate speech. It is tempting to proceed as if the nature of corporate speech is self-evident. But this is hardly the case. Corporations are not natural persons, and we mustn't assume corporate speech is indistinguishable from human speech. Before we can ethically evaluate corporate speech, we must first clarify what corporate speech is. This requires an understanding of the fundamental nature of the corporate entity, including its moral status. Second, raising the issue of corporate moral agency is important if we wish to promote morally responsible corporate speech. Any diminished moral capacity on the corporation's part would suggest a core role for the strong legal reinforcement of any ethical aspirations here. In promoting morally responsible corporate speech, ethical injunctions uncoupled from an effective legal regime may hold only limited promise.

Accountability, it would seem, is something that everyone would like to see more of. Citizens would like to have a more accountable government; teachers and parents would like to have more accountable students and schools; and clearly, stakeholders and commentators appear to desire more accountable corporations. One of the leading organizations concerned with improving the social and ethical performance of business is called simply, “AccountAbility” (http://www.accountability21.net/). The uniformity of such calls for greater accountability tempts one to see it as an unalloyed benefit to organizational performance and societal advancement.

This paper argues that social reporting can be an important form of New Governance regulation to achieve stakeholder accountability. Current social reporting practices, however, fall short of achieving stakeholder accountability and actually may work against it. By examining the success and failures of other transparency programs in the United States, we can identify key factors for ensuring the success of social reporting over the long term. These factors include increasing the benefits-to-costs ratios of both the users of the information and the disclosers, and recognizing the importance of the involvement of third-party intermediaries.

Wayne Norman and Chris MacDonald launch a strong attack against Triple Bottom Line or 3BL accounting in their article “Getting to the Bottom of ‘Triple Bottom Line’” (2004). This response suggests that, while limitations to 3BL accounting do exist, the critique of Norman and MacDonald is deeply flawed.

We respond to Moses Pava's defense of the “Triple Bottom Line” (3BL) concept against our earlier criticisms. We argue that, pace Pava, the multiplicity of measures (and units of measure) that go into evaluating ethical performance cannot reasonably be compared to the handful of standard methods for evaluating financial performance. We also question Pava's claim that usage of the term “3BL” is somehow intended to be ironical or subversive.

I apply stigma-management strategies to corporate scandals and expand on past research by (a) describing a particular type of stigma management strategy that involves accepting responsibility while denying it, (b) delineating types of stigma that occur in scandals (demographic versus character), and (c) considering the moral implications of shifting stigmas that arise from scandals. By emphasizing the distinction between character and demographic stigma, I make progress in evaluating the moral implications of shifting different types of stigma.

According to one prominent view of rationality, for the choice of alternative to be justified, it must be at least as good as other alternatives. Michael Jensen has recently invoked this view to argue that managers should act exclusively to maximize the long-run market value of economic enterprises. According to Jensen, alternative accounts of managerial responsibility, such as stakeholder theory, are to be rejected because they lack a single measure to compare alternatives as better or worse. Against Jensen's account, this paper argues that choosing the alternative that is at least as good as other alternatives need not preclude managers from respecting considerations in addition to long-run market value. The paper argues that such considerations may be incorporated into managerial decision-making by introducing constraints and priorities into the process of maximizing long-run market value and by allowing for “clumpy” values.

Arnold and Bowie (2003) attempt to derive ethical constraints on the actions of the managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs), or the MNEs themselves, from a Kantian perspective. We contest Arnold and Bowie's claims regarding MNE duties, in particular that MNEs have a duty to pay a subsistence wage above market levels. We conclude that even within Arnold and Bowie's Kantian framework such a duty does not properly emerge. In addition, we argue that the account of coercion used by Arnold and Bowie does not serve their purposes. Arnold and Bowie address consequentialist issues by arguing that their conclusions are not undercut by economic considerations regarding unemployment. We argue that Arnold and Bowie have misread the economic literature in this regard.

This paper challenges some of the basic epistemological assumptions that underpin our current conceptions of accountability. Recent legislative developments like Sarbanes-Oxley attempt to enhance accountability in the business environment through the employment of checks and balances and the threat of individual liability. This kind of legalistic strategy still seems to assume the existence of an individual agent who employs moral principles to come to decisions in a deliberate, impartial manner. This paper will emphasize that moral decision-making often does not take place in this manner, but is rather a tacit process of sensing what the appropriate behavior would be. Accountability, both with respect to individuals and organizations, is less a matter of “accounting for” a set of concrete assets, than a question of being accountable to a set of internal and external stakeholders, or in terms of the tacit sense of moral propriety that develops among business associates and colleagues over time.

In “Sweatshops and Respect for Persons” we argued on Kantian grounds that managers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) have the following duties: to adhere to local labor laws, to refrain from coercion, to meet minimum health and safety standards, and to pay workers a living wage. In their commentary on our paper Sollars and Englander challenge some of our conclusions. We argue here that several of their criticisms are based on an inaccurate reading of our paper, and that none of the remaining criticisms successfully challenge our main arguments. By highlighting the shortcomings of their arguments we hope to advance discussion of the ethical treatment of workers in global supply chains.

Practical wisdom has received scant attention in business ethics. Defined as a disposition toward cleverness in crafting morally excellent responses to, or in anticipation of, challenging particularities, practical wisdom has four psychological components: knowledge, emotion, thinking, and motivation. People's experience, reflection, and inspiration are theorized to determine their capacity for practical wisdom-related performance. Enhanced by their abilities to engage in moral imagination, systems thinking, and ethical reframing, this capacity is realized in the form of wisdom-related performance. This can be manifested either in wise business decisions or through their performance as mentors, advice givers, or dispute handlers.