The Role of Business as a Force for Good

Edgar Bellow, Lotfi Hamzi, Huai Yuan Han  
(NEOMA Business School, France)

Abstract: Using a sustainable world orientation, this paper will examine the role of virtue ethics models (VE) in today’s globalized business environment in contrast to corporate responsibility models (CSR) of ethics. Examined through the lens of a qualitative case study framework using the coffee industry, the paper assesses and compares recent efforts to use VE and CSR models of social engagement and corporate sustainability, and vet their effects. Findings in terms of each firm’s sustainability, social weal, and good governance, as defined by the CSR and VE literature, are compared. Findings indicate that a VE approach to business ethics is one that will prove superior to CSR over the long term, but that it may be difficult for firms to interpret how to create best practices that will allow for a VE approach to sustainability to create the foundation for good governance. VE standards should be applied to a company’s employees and supply chain partners as well as leadership at the firm, because there must be an integration of ethics and leadership with practices and processes in each organization.

Key words: virtue ethics; CSR; sustainability; leadership; business ethics

JEL codes: M14, Q56