TY - JOUR
T1 - Business Ethics as Corporate Governance
AU - Thomsen, Steen
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - The paper analyses ethical business codes as governance mechanisms, i.e. institutions which facilitate coordination of economic behaviour. Ethical business codes are compared to other social institutions (market solutions, government intervention, the prevailing social ethic), and their efficiency is evaluated in terms of transaction costs. A normative rationale for ethical codes is found when other institutions fail to achieve socially optimal outcomes, in particular when the firm has access to unique information. Some economic incentives are identified which induce firms to commit to socially optimal ethical codes but it is argued that economic forces will not in general be sufficient for optimality.
AB - The paper analyses ethical business codes as governance mechanisms, i.e. institutions which facilitate coordination of economic behaviour. Ethical business codes are compared to other social institutions (market solutions, government intervention, the prevailing social ethic), and their efficiency is evaluated in terms of transaction costs. A normative rationale for ethical codes is found when other institutions fail to achieve socially optimal outcomes, in particular when the firm has access to unique information. Some economic incentives are identified which induce firms to commit to socially optimal ethical codes but it is argued that economic forces will not in general be sufficient for optimality.
KW - Business ethics
KW - Corporate governance
KW - Institutional economics
KW - Market failure
KW - Business ethics
KW - Corporate governance
KW - Institutional economics
KW - Market failure
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954927382300&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes
U2 - 10.1023/A:1008791702733
DO - 10.1023/A:1008791702733
M3 - Journal article
VL - 11
SP - 153
EP - 163
JO - European Journal of Law and Economics
JF - European Journal of Law and Economics
SN - 0929-1261
IS - 2
ER -