Perspectives on ethics : profit and non-profit business leaders in Ireland
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Authors
Boland, Brian
Issue Date
2013
Degree
MBA in Business Management
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
As ethical concern has reached a 30 year high among future business leaders (Drover, et al., 2012), a focus on those who lead current businesses could prove to be imperative to furthering our understanding of business ethics. The researcher studied a small sample of business leaders in Ireland, focusing on both the profit and non-profit sector in order to understand their perspectives on the subject of ethics and their own role on influencing ethical conduct within their organization. Alongside this was a comparative study between both the profit and non-profit leaders and their perspectives. Through a thematic analysis, themes were discovered based around to these topics including themes relating to reputation and transparency, the financial crisis, teaching ethics, profit versus ethics and the importance of leadership, culture and values. Regarding the profit and non-profit comparison of business leaders a key theme was discovered in relation to exposure and how it shapes ethical focus. The researcher recommended further advancement into the study of ethics, particularly focusing on leadership and profit and non-profit sector comparisons utilizing both qualitative and quantitative research. Author keywords: Ethics, perspective(s), comparison(s), Ireland, business leader(s), profit, non-profit