How to be Profitable and Moral

How to be Profitable and Moral PDF

Author: Jaana Woiceshyn

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2011-12-23

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 0761857001

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A basic dilemma confronting today’s manager is how to be both profitable and moral. Making profits through immoral means—such as deceiving investors or customers—is unsustainable. Likewise, remaining moral while losing money will cause a business to fail. According to conventional morality, either a business manager maximizes profits and necessarily compromises on ethics, or necessarily sacrifices profits in order to be moral. Woiceshyn explains why this is a false dichotomy and offers rational egoism as an alternative moral code to businesspeople who want to maximize profits ethically. Through logical argument and various examples, this book shows how to apply principles such as rationality, productiveness, honesty, justice, and pride for long-term self-interest.

Making Money Moral

Making Money Moral PDF

Author: Judith Rodin

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 161363109X

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"As we look ahead to the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, Making Money Moral could not come at a better time." —Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase The math doesn't add up: Global financial markets can no longer ignore the world's most critical problems. The risks are too high and the costs too great. In Making Money Moral: How a New Wave of Visionaries Is Linking Purpose and Profit, authors Judith Rodin and Saadia Madsbjerg explore a burgeoning movement of bold and ambitious innovators. These trailblazers are unlocking private-sector investments in new ways to solve global problems, from environmental challenges to social issues such as poverty and inequality. They are earning great returns and reimagining capitalism in the process. Pioneers in the field of sustainable and impact investing, Rodin and Madsbjerg offer first-hand stories of how investors of every type and in every asset class are investing in world-changing solutions—with great success. Meet the visionaries who are leading this movement:The investment managers putting trillions of dollars to work, like TPG, Wellington Management, State Street Global Advisors, Nuveen, Amundi, APG and Natixis;The asset owners driving the transition, like GPIF and PensionDanmark;A new generation of entrepreneurs benefiting from the investments, like DreamBox Learning, an innovative educational technology platform, and Goodlife Pharmacies, which is disrupting the traditional notion of a pharmacy; The corporations that are repurposing their business models to meet demand for sustainable products and services, like Ørsted; andThe nonprofits that are reimagining how to raise money for their work while creating significant value for investors, like The Nature Conservancy. In their book, Rodin and Madsbjerg offer a deep look at the most powerful tools available today—and how they can be unlocked. They reveal:Who the investors are and what they want;How innovative products and investment strategies can deliver long-term value for investors while improving lives and protecting ecosystems;How leaders can build strategies and prepare their organizations to enter and expand this dynamic market; andHow to measure impact, understand critical regulations, and avoid potential pitfalls.A roadmap to making the financial market a force for good, Making Money Moral is a must-read for those seeking private-sector capital to address a big problem, as well as those seeking both to mitigate risk and to invest in big solutions. "Judith Rodin and Saadia Madsbjerg identify an important new way of looking at money: from the root of all evil to the fount of all solutions. Their timely, important book on impact investing is full of powerful insights and compelling examples they've seen firsthand. Their work will be sure to accelerate momentum toward a more sustainable world." —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and Author of Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time

What Money Can't Buy

What Money Can't Buy PDF

Author: Michael J. Sandel

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1429942584

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Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?In his New York Times bestseller Justice, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can't Buy, he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our market-driven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don't honor and that money can't buy?

The Moral Case for Profit Maximization

The Moral Case for Profit Maximization PDF

Author: Robert White

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-04-01

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498542646

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The Moral Case for Profit Maximization argues that profit maximization is moral when businessmen seek to maximize profit by creating goods or services that are of objective value. Traditionally, profit maximization has been defended on economic grounds. Profit, economists argue, incentivizes businessmen to produce goods and services. In this view, businessmen do not need to be virtuous as long as they deliver the goods. It challenges the traditional defense of profit maximization, arguing that profit maximization is morally ambitious because it requires businessmen to form normative abstractions and to cultivate a virtuous character. In so doing, the author also challenges the moral basis of corporate social responsibility. Proponents of CSR argue that businessmen can do good while doing well. This book argues that businessmen already do good by maximizing profit, drawing upon the histories of the wheel, the refrigerator, and the shipping container, as well as the biographies of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison to demonstrate the role of values in the creation of material goods and the role of the virtues in value creation. The author challenges readers to rethink the relationship between profit, value, and virtue.

Good Value

Good Value PDF

Author: Stephen Green

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2011-02-08

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0802197965

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“An unusual and thoughtful disquisition on how to conduct oneself in a world of high finance and ambition.” —The Wall Street Journal A Financial Times Book of the Year Can one be both an ethical person and an effective businessperson? As an ordained priest and former bank chairman, Stephen Green thinks so. In Good Value, Green retraces the history of the global economy and its financial systems, and shows that while the marketplace has delivered huge advantages to humanity, it has also abandoned over a billion people to extreme poverty, encouraged overconsumption and debt, and ravaged the environment. How do we reconcile the demands of capitalism with both the common good and our own spiritual and psychological needs as individuals? To answer that, and some of the most vexing questions of our age, Green takes us on a lively and erudite journey through history, looking for lessons in the work of economists and philosophers, businessmen and poets, theologians and novelists, playwrights and political scientists. An essential business book by a man who is uniquely qualified to write it, Good Value is a timely and persuasive analysis of the most pressing financial and moral questions we face.

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics PDF

Author: Mark D. White

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 666

ISBN-13: 0198793995

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Economics and ethics are both valuable tools for analyzing the behavior and actions of human beings and institutions. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, considered them two sides of the same coin, but since economics was formalized and mathematicised in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the fields have largely followed separate paths. The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics provides a timely and thorough survey of the various ways ethics can, does, and should inform economic theory and practice. The first part of the book, Foundations, explores how the most prominent schools of moral philosophy relate to economics; asks how morals relevant to economic behavior may have evolved; and explains how various approaches to economics incorporate ethics into their work. The second part, Applications, looks at the ethics of commerce, finance, and markets; uncovers the moral dilemmas involved with making decisions regarding social welfare, risk, and harm to others; and explores how ethics is relevant to major topics within economics, such as health care and the environment. With esteemed contributors from economics and philosophy, The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics is a resource for scholars in both disciplines and those in related fields. It highlights the close relationship between ethics and economics in the past while and lays a foundation for further integration going forward.

Morality, Competition, and the Firm

Morality, Competition, and the Firm PDF

Author: Joseph Heath

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0199990492

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In this collection of provocative essays, Joseph Heath provides a compelling new framework for thinking about the moral obligations that private actors in a market economy have toward each other and to society. In a sharp break with traditional approaches to business ethics, Heath argues that the basic principles of corporate social responsibility are already implicit in the institutional norms that structure both marketplace competition and the modern business corporation. In four new and nine previously published essays, Heath articulates the foundations of a "market failures" approach to business ethics. Rather than bringing moral concerns to bear upon economic activity as a set of foreign or externally imposed constraints, this approach seeks to articulate a robust conception of business ethics derived solely from the basic normative justification for capitalism. The result is a unified theory of business ethics, corporate law, economic regulation, and the welfare state, which offers a reconstruction of the central normative preoccupations in each area that is consistent across all four domains. Beyond the core theory, Heath offers new insights on a wide range of topics in economics and philosophy, from agency theory and risk management to social cooperation and the transaction cost theory of the firm.

Profit at Any Cost?

Profit at Any Cost? PDF

Author: Jerry Fleming

Publisher: Baker Books

Published: 2003-05-01

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1441242821

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As a young executive, Jerry Fleming wondered if making a profit and behaving ethically were even compatible. Years later, he discovered that ethical companies not only showed greater profits than their unethical competitors but also experienced greater employee satisfaction and public trust. With corporate scandals in the headlines, Profit at any Cost? is Fleming's call for businesspeople to rethink how ethics are lived out in the marketplace. In so doing, he says, they will find greater peace, success, and profits. With real-life examples from his thirty-year business career, Fleming challenges readers to: " see that the business world is not a separate playing field with its own "rules" examine the failures of energy-giant Enron and other troubled corporations " understand how seemingly insignificant choices lead to unethical business practices " discover four moral principles that lead to long-term success in business and life " learn why ethical companies are more successful in the long run With humor, poignant insights, and a wealth of research, Profit at Any Cost? will challenge and inspire men and women of all professions to bring integrity back to the workplace.

Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance

Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance PDF

Author: Lynn S. Paine

Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional

Published: 2002-08-22

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0071415696

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"Lynn Paine has an optimistic analysis of the need for--and the value of--bringing ethical values into business decision-making. The 'meltdown' of so many high-flyers reecntly suggests that lesson had been lost on too many companies during the boom years. The time has come to take account of what she writes."--Paul A. Volcker "This book presents a way of broadening the role of the corporation in our society, an interesting and exciting role. It's a good read for young leaders in all walks of life."--John C. Whitehead, former Chairman, Goldman Sachs "Value Shift provides a timely and compelling argument for why companies must incorporate values into their strategies--that no one in business can afford to ignore."--Daniel Vasella, Chairman + CEO /Novartis AG

Honorable Business

Honorable Business PDF

Author: James R. Otteson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-01-30

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0190914238

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Business has a bad name for many people. It is easy to point to unethical and damaging behavior by companies. And it may seem straightforward to blame either indivuduals or, more generally, ruthless markets and amoral commercial society. In Honorable Business, James R. Otteson argues that business activity can be valuable in itself. The primary purpose of honorable businesses is to create value-for all parties. They look for mutually voluntary and mutually beneficial transactions, so that all sides of any exchange benefit, leading to increasing prosperity not just for one person or for one group at the expense of others but simultaneously for everyone involved. Done correctly, honorable business is a positive-sum activity that can enable flourishing for individuals and prosperity for society. Otteson connects honorable business with the political, economic, and cultural institutions that contribute to a just and humane society. He builds on Aristotle's conception of human beings as purposive creatures who are capable of constructing a plan for their lives that gives them a chance of achieving the highest good for humanity, focusing on autonomy and accountability, as well as good moral judgment. This good judgment can enable us to answer the why of what we do, not just the how. He also draws on Adam Smith's moral philosophy and political economy, and argues that Smithian institutions have played a significant role in the remarkable increase in worldwide prosperity we have seen over the last two hundred years. Otteson offers a pragmatic Code of Business Ethics, linked to a specific conception of professionalism, and defends this Code on the basis of a moral mandate to use one's limited resources of time, talent, and treasure to provide value for oneself only by simultaneously providing value to others. The result is well-articulated parameters within which business can be an acceptable-perhaps even praiseworthy-activity.