The Global Financial Crisis is acknowledged to be the most severe economic downturn since the 1930s, and one that is unique in its underlying causes, its scope, and its wider social, political and economic implications. This volume explores some of the ethical issues that it has raised.

The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 concentrated attention on the morality of banking and financial activities. Just as mainstream businesses became increasingly defined by their financial performance, banks, it seemed, got themselves – and everyone else – into trouble through an over-emphasis on themselves as commercial enterprises that need pay little attention to traditional banking virtues or ethics. While the GFC had many causes, criticism was legitimately levelled at banks over the ethics of mortgage creation, excessive securitisation, executive remuneration, and high-pressure customer sales tactics, amongst other things. These criticisms mirror those that have been levelled at the business more generally, particular in the last decade, although the backdrop provided by the GFC is more dramatic, and the outcomes of supposed wrongdoing more severe. This book focuses on business ethics after the GFC; not on the crisis itself, but how we should respond to it. The GFC has focused minds on the proper role of ethics in the understanding and conduct of business activity, but it is essential to look beyond the crisis to address the deeper challenges that it highlights. The aim of this volume is to present examples of the latest philosophically-informed thinking across a range of ethical issues that relate to business activity, using the banks and the GFC – the consequences of which continue to reverberate – as a point of departure. The book will be of great value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in business, ethics in general, and business ethics in particular.

In Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist? Charles K. Wilber argues that the American economy has not only failed to overcome poverty, it has generated extreme inequality that in turn restricts social mobility and further marginalizes the poor. Wilber argues that economic theory is permeated with ethical values and any economics must be so; that human behavior is more complex than the economists’ simple self-interest model; that people are also driven by deeply embedded moral values; that markets require intervention to create equity; and that Catholic social thought provides the perspective and values to develop a more relevant social economics. The author takes that modified economics and uses it to analyze specific social problems: labor markets, poverty, inequality, financial crisis, and development. Wilber next focuses on the important role of families, labor unions, parishes, and small Christian communities, such as the Catholic Worker movement, as mediating institutions in the economy. He concludes with a final look at the questions, "Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist?".

This book challenges amoral views of finance as the leading realm in which mammon – wealth and profit – is pursued with little overt regard for morality. The author details an enhanced ethical emphasis by leading Anglo–American professionals in the aftermath of the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Instead of merely stressing expert knowledge, professionals sought to overcome the alleged impossibility of serving “two masters” – mammon and God – by embracing religious finance, socio-economic inequality, sustainability and other overtly moral issues. Continuities in liberal values and ideas, however, limited the impact of this enhanced ethical emphasis to restoring the professional authority, as well as to more fundamentally reforming of Anglo–American finance following the most severe period of instability since the Great Depression. Providing a nuanced account of post-crisis change and continuity in a crucially important industry, Campbell-Verduyn advances a dynamic, process-based understanding of authority that will appeal to international political economists and sociologists alike.

Introduction -- The global financial crisis of 2007-09 : an overview of neglected ideas from economics, psychology, and values / A.G. Malliaris, Leslie Shaw, and Hersh Shefrin -- The global financial crisis of 2007-09 and economics -- From asset price bubbles to liquidity traps / A.G. Malliaris -- A minsky meltdown: lessons for central bankers / Janet Yellen -- Modeling financial instability / Steve Keen -- Assessing the contribution of hyman minsky's perspective to our understanding of economic instability / Hersh Shefrin -- The Great Recession of 2008-09 and its impact on unemployment / John Silvia -- Mathematical definition, mapping, and detection of (anti)fragility / Nassim Taleb and Rafael Douady -- The global financial crisis of 2007-09 and psychology -- The varieties of incentive experience / Robert Kolb -- Goals and the organization of choice under risk in both the long run and the short run / Lola Lopes -- Topology of greed and fear / Graciela Chichilnisky -- A sustainable understanding of instability in minds and in markets / Leslie Shaw -- Existence of monopoly in the stock market : a model of information-based manipulation / Viktoria Dalko, Lawrence R. Klein, S. Prakash Sethi, and Michael Wang -- Crisis of authority / Werner DeBondt -- Social structure, power, and financial fraud / Brooke Harrington -- The global financial crisis of 2007-09 and values -- Economics, self psychology, and ethics : why modern economic persons cheat and how self psychology can provide the basis for a trustworthy economic world / John Riker -- Finance professionals in the market for status / Meir Statman -- Why risk management failed: ethical and behavioral explanations / John Boatright -- The global financial crisis and social justice : the crisis seen through the lens of Catholic social doctrine / Paul Fitzgerald, S.J -- The moral benefits of financial crises: a virtue ethics perspective / John Dobson -- Three ethical dimensions of the financial crisis / Antonio Argandonan -- Epilogue -- Lessons for future financial stability / A.G. Malliaris, Leslie Shaw, and Hersh Shefrin

With the occurrence of the US crisis, international focus has shifted from finance to financial stability. This book offers analyses of financial stability risk assessment at three main levels – namely international financial markets, banks and international trade – with the research being innovative, timely and much needed in terms of policy implications. New approaches to policy-making are also suggested to deal with the three crises that presently buffet the world: the debt crisis, an ageing population and climate change.

This book contemplates the ethics of responsibility in a large range of meanings, consequences and impacts. It reflects the perspectives and reasoning of 24 authors from all continents. All chapters are original papers presented at the Fifth World ISBEE Congress, that took place in Warsaw, Poland, at the Kozminski University, on 11-14 of July, 2012. In this book, ethics and responsibility are considered essential traits of character, not only in the business or governmental arenas but in any initiative, decision and activity. The contributions to this book focus on a spectrum of themes, terms and concepts, the global corporate social responsibilities perspective covering impacts, challenges, analysis, criticism, consequences of important topics of real life, sustainability, international economy and regimes, corruption, poverty and violence, among others. The book is intended for academics, researchers and professionals in all continents who are dedicated to Ethics, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Innovation, and Sustainability Management.

"This book summarizes the main theories of globalized ethics and show their inadequacies in dealing with IT-enabled global ethical problem"--Provided by publisher.

Award-winning, best-selling, and authoritative: the business ethics book of choice.

Traditionally, books on business ethics focus on CSR, companies’ relations with their stakeholders, and corporate citizenship. More recently, green credentials and sustainability have been added to that agenda. Unconventionally, this book argues that business ethics are basic to running business, not a separate subject. They are inherent to the governance and management of every organization, not an optional exercise in corporate citizenship. Business ethics concern behaviour in business and the behaviour of business. Decisions at every level in a company have ethical implications – strategically in the board room, managerially throughout the organization, and operationally in all of its activities. The use, and sometimes the abuse, of corporate power, the process of corporate governance, raises ethical issues. Business involves risk-taking, whether decisions are at the strategic, managerial, or operational level. Exposure to ethical risk needs to be part of every organization’s strategy formulation, policy making, and enterprise risk management. Designed to be read by both undergraduates and postgraduates, this book is a primer on ethics in business. It is also relevant to ethics courses that are now part of many legal, accountancy and other professional examinations. The book is not about moral philosophy, nor does it prescribe appropriate standards of behaviour or recommend economic, legal or political solutions. Rather it enables readers to recognize ethical issues in business, to respond appropriately, and to embed ethics in business processes. The book not only considers what business ethics are, and why they are important, but offers practical approaches on how to develop a successful corporate ethics culture.