Library Guides: MBA/MSA 60400 Strategic Writing (McKendree): Business Ethics

Ethics in Business Writing General Considerations

Resources in this section provide general overviews defining concepts in business ethics as well as providing standards and advice on ethically communicating in the business writing environment. Resources like this may be helpful in communicating the importance of business ethics to an outward audience. It is important to note the importance of having an audience of business practitioners as opposed to scholars. The language used between these two groups differs, and business practitioners may be less familiar with terms relating to academic theory.

Recommended Resources

Harrisburg Area Community College: Ethical Consideration in Business Writing
Provides a general guide to standards and recommendations to effectively communicating business ethics in writing. The guide pulls in information from the Harvard Business Review as well as a business ethics communication case in the Equifax hack of 2017.
The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics
A reference work centered on defining key concepts with in depth and understandable explanations within business ethics. A useful tool for clarification of jargon and theories which may occur in the field.

Business Ethics Journals

Here, you will find recommendations of credible academic journals focusing on current issues relating business ethics, society, and law. These may provide idea in communicating ethical issues in the business environment across a variety of stakeholders.

Journal records can generally be browsed by date and issue number allowing for scanning of current topics. Most journal records will also have an option to "search within" the publication allowing you to make targeted keyword searches to that specific journal.

Recommended Resources

Business Ethics Quarterly
A frequently updated academic journal published up to the last 12 months focusing on current business ethics research. When you select "search within this publication", the database will autofill a search that you can add terms to in the following format: JN "Business Ethics Quarterly" AND "ethical leadership", this searches any instance of the term ethical leadership within the journal's articles.
Business & Society
This journal focuses on the impact of business on society and the various ethical issues that emerge from it. The option to search within the journal is located at the top of the page.
Journal of Law, Business & Ethics
This journal uniquely focuses on the intersection of ethical issues with business in law. There is a lot of current analysis on practical business ethics issues which resulted in some form of litigation or regulation among other more general topics.
Google Scholar
Specific search strings in Google Scholar may draw out various types of literature on the importance of business ethics. A search such as "ethical leadership" AND performance will generally bring out articles with conclusions claiming good ethical leadership practices has a positive impact on performance metrics for a company. Major historical examples of ethics breaches may also be good search terms for this resources. For example "equifax data breach" AND "case study" will result in a variety of case analysis of the 2017 equifax data breach which led to an increase in the need for inquiry into business ethics. Such cases will likely investigate aspects of communication, ethics, and leadership.

Ethical Issues in the News

News source may prove beneficial in communicating the importance of ethical leadership within a business. It seems like every day a new scandal emerges concerning the leadership of some company. Citing a current story in which an ethical issue impacted a well known business could grab the attention of an external audience.

Recommended Resources

Wall Street Journal
Provides direct access to The Wall Street Journal, a premier source of business, industry, and finance news.
Financial Times
Provides access to the Financial Times, a premier source of international finance news and analysis.
Factiva
Licensed for 5 simultaneous users.
Provides a searchable platform for thousands of news and trade periodicals. The search tab at the top of the page allows for a highly filtered search where you can set filters underneath the main search box such as company to only search news as it pertains to specific company. Combining this with the Factiva Expert Search filter may be helpful as it has a "news sentiment" category allowing search for specifically negative or positive news coverage on a variety of topic areas that overlap with ethics. Could be an easy way to identify a controversy!
Nexis Uni (formerly Lexis Nexis Academic)
A news searching platform with an emphasis on business and law. Nexis Uni can search news articles similar to Factiva, but it has the added ability to search U.S. court cases at the state and federal level. If an issue that overlaps with ethical leadership resulted in litigation at any point for a company, the resulting case documentation may provide information that could cement the importance of ethical leadership to an external audience.

MBA/MSA 60400 Strategic Writing (McKendree)

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Ethics in Business Writing General Considerations

Recommended Resources

Business Ethics Journals

Recommended Resources

Ethical Issues in the News

Recommended Resources