The Business Ethics Field Guide: The Essential Companion to Leading Your Career and Your Company to Greatness

by Brad Agle, Bill O'Rourke

"A superb guide to personal and organizational ethics!"
- Stephen M. R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust

Any cursory online search will reveal thousands of books and articles that try to help you become a better manager or a better leader. According to many of these texts, managing involves planning and budgeting, organizing, controlling, problem solving, and communicating; while leading means establishing direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring them, and creating change.

In this book, we propose a third set of skills that are often neglected but are just as essential for effective leadership: the ability to clarify individual and organizational values and to find a way forward when these values conflict. This book will help you develop those skills and apply them in your organization to become a better leader.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Self Help, Read For School

340 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Hazel Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely gets you thinking about different ethics problems. We used the end of chapter dilemmas for presentations in class and had a lot of good discussions.

[thethousanderclub · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the several business books I have thus far, and the number of those types of books has increased dramatically over the last few years, I haven't read anything similar to The Business Ethics Field Guide. At least, I haven't read anything that focuses exclusively on the topic of ethics within business. The Business Ethics Field Guide is a worthwhile book, which posits over a dozen ethical case studies and their subsequent difficulties for the reader. Some dilemmas are truly difficult to unpack. Others seem fairly straightforward, which is probably because I haven't reflected enough on the scenario. Regardless, the scenarios and the book itself, provide a ripe vineyard of discussion and challenge.

The structure of The Business Ethics Field Guide almost demands it be read with others; in fact, I wish I had an opportunity to read this book as part of a class or book club. The reflection activities are worthwhile but aren't nearly as fulfilling as a solitary exercise. Many of these ethical dilemmas should really be discussed and deconstructed by a group of people, who bring a variety of perspectives and values, to truly appreciate their difficulty. I could see myself debating with wavering levels of confidence about the several scenarios. What would I do? What should I do? Is the answer to both of those questions always the same? The nuances of each ethical dilemma, some of which are extremely subtle but important, should leave most who have an interest in ethics engaged and provoked.

In addition to the scenarios are personal experiences from Bill O'Rourke. These personal stories and insights are especially interesting. I was genuinely fascinated by O'Rourke's time working in Russia and having to maneuver, and sometimes stubbornly refuse to maneuver, through that country's thorny ethical practices. On the whole, we take ethical behavior for granted and are aghast when egregious wrong-doing, such as bribery, is uncovered. Unfortunately, many countries and cultures throughout the world operate under a very different and problematic set of ethical standards. As the authors point out: ". . . when people can trust each other, doing business becomes much less expensive for everyone, because the costs of self-preservation go down. The fruits of cooperation, fundamental to any economic activity, grow more readily." From a business and economic perspective, doing business ethically and honestly is the better bet for a society—less costly, more fair and just, and more easily navigable.

The latter half of the book, after the scenarios and reflection activities, actually some of the most stimulating reading for me. I'm a cerebral person, and I enjoy a real-world scenario as much as the next reader, which makes up the majority of this book, but I also am extremely interested in processing the intellectual nuances of ethics and morality. Although filled with analogies, a book like The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a masterpiece of intellectual weight. It's dense; it's difficult; and I loved it. The Business Ethics Field Guide wouldn't be successful taking such an approach considering its intended audience, and I recognize that. However, I think the authors could have spent more time detailing the philosophical and epistemological elements inherent in any discussion of ethics. I felt the book focused too much on what without providing a solid enough foundation related to why.

The Business Ethics Field Guide is absolutely worth reading for any working professional, and for anyone else for that matter. The world can be terribly complicated. Even for people who are instinctively good, honest, and trustworthy, situations of terribly complicated ethical consequences can arise, leaving individuals lost and unsure as to the proper approach. This book doesn't and can't detail each pathway to being ethical, but it does provide a nice framework, as well as some useful case studies in which readers can harmlessly work out ethical dilemmas, from which readers can learn from and implement so as to be more ethical, more trustworthy, and subsequently more successful.

http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com/

[Ellen Poplavska · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a little slow to begin, but, once you get into it, it's a great ethics discussion for people of all walks of life, business-related or not.

The book begins with 14 pages of forewords, reviews, how-to-use-this-book, and so on. I don't feel like I'm missing anything by skimming these, as they don't have a lot of information and they tend to bore the reader after a while.

The challenges are really the best part (and the bulk) of the book, and they get better as you go. I didn't find myself fully hooked on this book until about 50 pages in. The beginning is slow, but, after that, the challenge chapters get better and better, and there's a useful section of charts, explanations, and suggestions about ethical leadership at the end.

I found this book to be useful and entertaining, and the stories really do draw you right in and make you think. The challenges cover most ethical dilemma types I could imagine, and are useful exercises to anyone.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started out as an “ethics war stories” recitation with customary sage advice, but then developed into a more analytical perspective on ethical behaviors. Most valuable, or at least a new contribution to the study for me, was the introduction and discussion of “neutralizing techniques”, which are the cognitive errors and rationalizations we use to exonerate ourselves from ethical transgressions we would normally acknowledge as wrong if someone else were doing it.

[Cash Allred · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is more about about helping give you the skills to make hard choices (when you face a dilemma) than it is about making the case to be ethical. Every single person will face choices like this in their lives and career. It is worth reading and going back to. Its the only book I read as a textbook so far that I will keep on my shelf forever.

[Emma Langford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book categorizes ethical dilemmas into labeled groups that helped me identify similar dilemmas in the real world. I think the whole “adventure” theme is a stretch but overall this book contains good info.

[Maggie O’Rosen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was gifted this book and I’m sad to say it sat for so long on my bookshelf. I’m happy I read it and didn’t know I needed it. I do find myself looking at situations differently, working for a large contracting firm, where there are plenty of opportunities to evaluate ethics.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very helpful guide to making ethical decisions. It has good real life examples and frameworks to draw upon when faced wiI h ethical dilemmas.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

High quality book.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on the basics of ethical behavior in the workplace.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read. Loved the examples and application. Definitely something I’d like to revisit in the future.

[Jonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. I think it almost perfectly accomplishes its goal. I only had to read a couple chapters of this book for class, but I ended up reading the whole thing. Interesting and relevant.

[Ethan Hoopes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid Book, I’d recommend it to anyone going into business.

[Carolina Colleene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the assigned "textbook" for my ethics class, and it is one of the few textbooks that I have enjoyed reading. The insights and pointers are relevant. The information is interesting. The benefits are numberless. I know this is not the last time I will read or refer to this book.