Title: Alerting corporate leaders: the need for ethical deliberation and sustainability

Authors: Umesh Sharma; Martin Kelly

Addresses: Waikato Management School, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand ' Waikato Management School, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand

Abstract: In order to categorise business as 'good' one must choose what characterises 'Good Business'. We argue that, over the past 60 years, many business students and managers have been prepared to accept unquestioningly what they are told good business characteristics are, without relating those characteristics to societal and environmental wellbeing. Business has created many problems in society. In recent times business leaders have obtained huge power in society, but they have been excused building ethical considerations in to their decision models. Unless we build ethical considerations in to our deliberations, the world as we know it may collapse due to failures in the ecosystems, or rebellion from the huge number of intolerably poor people. Those responsible for management education must help future managers recognise the need for self-constructed ethical decision models in society.

Keywords: sustainability; ethics; business; modernity; neoclassical economics; accounting education.

DOI: 10.1504/AJAAF.2016.083693

African Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, 2016 Vol.5 No.3, pp.181 - 192

Received: 07 Jun 2016
Accepted: 13 Jun 2016

Published online: 19 Apr 2017 *

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