Introducing Critical Management Ethics

Abstract

Many books in the area of management ethics are written under the premise that ethics relates positively, if not affirmatively, to management, business, and corporations. Inside this most common approach to management ethics, ethics is subsumed under the domineering ideas of management. Rather than outlining the relationship between management and ethics, ethics is constructed as the management of ethics. Rather than viewing management ethics as part of philosophy or applied philosophy, management ethics is seen as part of management. Hence, management ethics is not a branch of management philosophy but a branch of management studies. The emphasis in management ethics is on management, not on ethics. Therefore, management ethics is not viewed as a philosophical study of morals but a study of management morality — minus philosophy which takes the backseat. Management ethics has been turned into a departmental issue like operations, marketing, sales, Human Resource Management (HRM), etc. that needs to be managed.¹ This tends to set tight parameters for the role ethics can play inside the framework of management and its ideological outgrowth of Managerialism.²