Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) is arguably the most promising theory of business ethics to date, but is often criticized for its inability to produce substantive, action guiding norms. The gist of the problem is that the contractualist argument central to this theory may justify many...

We develop a grounded neo-institutional theory explaining the occurrence of misconduct in professional service firms. The theory harbors two novel insights. First, parallel governance structures, which are presently the norm in many professional fields, aggravate rather than dampen misconduct....

Some centers of gravity are finally emerging in the field of business ethics after a decades-long search for action-guiding theories. Amongst the foremost of these are contractualism and virtue ethics. The former focuses on the morals of economic exchange, the latter on the moral qualities of...