Summary from part II - Organizational Level Business Leaderships from book Leadership and Business Ethics , edited by GABRIEL FLYNN

2. Book :
Leadership and
Business Ethics
Edited by
GABRIEL FLYNN
Dublin City University,
Mater Dei Institute, Dublin,
Ireland 123

3. Part II
Organizational Level Business Leaderships

4. Organizational Level Business
Leaderships
Book 3 - Part II

5. How Losing Soul Leads to
Ethical Corruption in
Business
A Business, like a
human being , is a living
enterprise driven by it’s
project and goals
The corruption is the
result of such a loss of
purpose (soul)

6. How Losing Soul Leads to
Ethical Corruption in
Business
ability to make promises is
paradoxical in the animal
kingdom for it is a very
special activity, since, as far
as we know, human beings
are the only animals that
exhibit a promise making
function. It is a sign that
humans are not determined
solely by their hardwiring, but
also by their own
commitments.

7. How Losing Soul Leads to
Ethical Corruption in
Business
The ability to make promises is fundamental
to our existence as relational beings.
Additionally, the maintenance of
relationships requires our assent to implicit
promises, which involve actions or emotions
which are reasonably expected, but not
anticipated.

8. How Losing Soul Leads to
Ethical Corruption in
Business
Businesses talk about vision, mission, and
values, and rightly so, because those visions,
missions, and values are the goals and
purposes of the companies.
The goals and purposes of the corporation are
the soul of the corporation, there can be
worthwhile missions and misguided missions.
Entities can be corrupted. Corporations can
lose their souls.

9. How Losing Soul Leads to
Ethical Corruption in
Business
When a business strays from a
worthwhile goal or purpose, it
becomes corrupt
accumulation of wealth for its own
sake (read “profit for the sake of
profit”) as one of the major sources of
corruption.

10. Cause of the Loss of
Soul
the capitalist system to be in accord
with one main rule or having one
spirit. “Capitalism is identical with the
pursuit of [profit] and forever renewed
profit by means of continuous,
rational, capitalistic enterprise .

11. How Did We Get Here? The Origin of
Capitalism and Its Ethic
principle holds that the primary and
only re- sponsibility of business is to
maximize profit for the shareholder
All you need to do in order to benefit
society is to look out for yourself.

12. Ethics Is Taught
While Milton Friedman
recommended pursuing
one’s interest as far as the
law allows, Smith
advocates something quite
different. As we have seen,
we are permitted, and even
encouraged, to pursue our
own interests, as long as
we do not violate the laws
of justice.

13. Ethics Is Taught
today’s business schools, the emphasis
is on Friedman’s approach, forgetting
Smith’s constraint, and the pursuit of
profit is perhaps taken even further than
Friedman would take it. It seems that
our up-and-coming business students
are not taught to seek their interests
insofar as the law allows, but insofar as
they can get away with it. The idea is
not to adhere to the spirit of the
law, but to walk the fine line
between adhering to and violating
the law, to obey the law to the
letter alone and no more than that.
Violating the spirit of law means
doing things like seeking creative

14. Ethics Is Taught
And, most importantly, train young
business leaders to hide behind the
law (or behind their legal counsel) if
they are ever questioned.

15. What Is The Purpose of
Business?
Adam Smith has two accounts :
The first talks about motivation and claims
that participants in the markets act from self-
interest.
talks about the overall purpose of trade and
production. That is the second account
that the justification of all this activity is the
production of goods and services, and the
motivation is self-interest

16. The Professions
Once the primary purpose of a
profession is overridden by concerns
to make money or profit, the
profession becomes corrupted.

17. Thank you
Leaderships and Business Ethic