Abstract
While the literature in business ethics abounds with philosophical analyses, perspectives from religious thinkers are curiously underrepresented. What religious analysis has occured has often been moralistic in tone, more fit to the pulpit than the classroom or the boardroom. In the three essays that follow, presented originally at a panel at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 1989, ethicists from the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish traditions analyze a case study familiar to many who teach and research in business ethics — the Consolidated Foods Case. Each author shows how a particular religious tradition might react to the case. The authors show how insights from their traditions would affect corporation's moral deliberations about policy. Specific policy recommendations are offered to CEO John Bryan.
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Louke Siker recieved her Ph.D. in 1987. She has taught Christian ethics and business ethics at Wake Forest University and Loyola Marymount University. Her research interests include methodology in business ethics. She is the author of ‘An Unlikely Dialogue: Barth and Business Ethicists on Human Work’, Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1989.
James Donahue is an Associate Professor of Theological Ethics at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. His research and publications focus on methodology in ethics, ethics and institutions, and ethics and the professions. He has published in Horizons, Religious Studies Review, Social Thought, Bioethics Books, and The Annual of the College Theology Society.
Ronald M. Green is the John Phillips Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion, Dartmouth College. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Business Ethics at Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, where he is responsible for first and second year courses on business ethics. He has written many articles in theoretical and applied ethics. He is the author of three books, Population Growth and Justice (Scholars Press, 1975), Religious Reason (Oxford University Press, 1978) and Religion and Moral Reason (Oxford University Press, 1988). Professor Green is currently working, with Dr. Robbin Derry, on a textbook in business ethics entitled The Ethical Manager to be published by Macmillian.
This is a summary of the Consolidated Foods Corporation Case # 382–158, Harvard Business School, 1982. It is used with the permission of its author, Kenneth E. Goodpaster.
Author of ‘A Protestant Response to the Consolidated Food Case.’
Author of ‘A Catholic Response ...’
Author of ‘A Jewish Response ...’
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Siker, L.V.W., Donahue, J.A. & Green, R.M. Does your religion make a difference in your business ethics? The case of consolidated foods. J Bus Ethics 10, 819–832 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383698
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383698