Reconnecting to the Social in Business Ethics

Abstract

In their previous reflections on the scope of Journal of Business Ethics, Greenwood and Freeman (2017) noted the need for a double movement at the journal—one toward focusing specifically on ethics as a connecting thread across the journal and one towards broadening the scope of ethics across disciplinary and paradigmatic communities. This dual concern over focus and breadth reflects a tension, as old as the field itself, deriving from the observation that ethics is both ubiquitous and yet difficult to grasp in any one specific part of social activity. Reflected in the construction of business ethics programs and curricula, as well as in delimiting business ethics as a field of scholarship, situating business ethicsinthe world while retaining its unique vantage pointuponthe world is a defining feature and a core challenge of our field.