The Integrity Advantage- Ethics, Trust, and Sustainable Business Growth

Book Abstract

This Book ?The Integrity Advantage- Ethics, Trust, and Sustainable Business Growth? contains long past time to take business ethics seriously. This is not because business people feel the need to appear virtuous, attentive to sustainability, or devoted to their stakeholders, but because business ethics can offer a competitive advantage to companies that prioritize it. A strong reputation and trustworthiness reduce transaction costs with partners, foster loyalty among employees, and attract top young talent. This book explores the many ways companies around the world can achieve such a competitive advantage. Use this volume to stay informed in this ?eld, which will only grow in importance as technology continues to shed light on who provides the goods and services we rely on. analyze how precautionary principles and different conceptions of sustainability are evident in the main international resolutions and summits on development and the environment since the Stockholm Conference (1972).These conceptions determine different ways of conceiving individual and collective responsibility, giving rise to a kind of ?virtue ethics? of diffuse contours. In this context, the aim is to discuss the ambiguities and paradoxes of sustainable development discourses and the precautionary approaches that are often associated with them. If, on the one hand, the precautionary principle can be seen as a restrictive and minimalist approach to preventive policies,which should presuppose a multidimensional articulation between anticipation,minimization, and reparation, anchored in a global debate and commitment,and on the other hand, the adoption of more protective and punitive measures(especially if they are only localized) can embody (new) (un)balances between freedoms and the common good, leading to a kind of ?scienti?cally backed authoritarianism?. We, therefore, need a profound debate on the foundations of (global) citizenship, governance, and participatory scales, assuming the interdependence between the economy, society, politics, and the environment.