Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Taxonomy Of Business Ethics Theories, Grace S. Thomson

Dr. Grace S. Thomson

An increasing interest on ethics in business has resulted in a fruitful production of scholarly research that provides business leaders and decision-makers with references to bridge theory and practice (Cherry, Lee, and Chien, 2003). For an effective application of business ethics theories, it is necessary to comprehend their domains, their external and internal logic, and the specific applications to the ethical issues under analysis (Wempe, 2008).

This document presents a taxonomy of 11 ethical theories applied to business ethics that incorporate grounded theory and conceptual frameworks. As a basis for the construction of this taxonomy, the selection of the theories …