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Business Ethics and the Well-Being of Nations – Is There a Connection?

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how business ethics is connected with the well-being of a nation. There has been active research in the well-being of nations across the globe in the last two decades, resulting in substantial theoretical progress and a wealth of empirical data on the well-beings of different nations across the globe. Dissatisfied with the conventional measures such as the GDP, well-being researchers have been developing alternative measures that can better capture the true nature of the well-being of a country. The paper begins by examining why the GDP is inadequate as a good measure of the well-being of a country. Major alternative proposals on well-being or similar measures are summarized. Objective well-being of a nation refers to the conditions of well-being of a country. Subjective well-being of a nation is the perceptions of its citizens with regard to their satisfaction with the major conditions of living in that nation. The paper presents two central arguments leading to the conclusion that business ethics is an integral part of the well-being of a country. The first argument utilizes the concept of workplace well-being to establish the linkage. The second argument uses evidence from a recent survey of the perceptions of Taiwanese people on business ethics in relation to the well-being of a nation. The paper also reveals that common values tie the two together at a deeper level.

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Acknowledgments

The data of this paper are taken from a survey in a research project “Research on the Well-being of Nations” supported by a grant (no. 965908) from the “Project of Promoting Academic Excellence and Developing World Class Research Centers,” of the National Central University in 2007. I am indebted to Professor Alex Michalos for his advice and guidance on well-being research, as well as his many helpful suggestions on this paper. I am also grateful to Professor Robert Cummins and Professor Ruut Veenhoven for their many ideas in well-being that have inspired this paper.

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  1. Graduate Institute of Philosophy, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Road, Jhongli, 320, Taiwan

    Po-Keung Ip

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Ip, PK. Business Ethics and the Well-Being of Nations – Is There a Connection?. J Bus Ethics 95, 97–110 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0351-2

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