The Ordonomic Approach to Business Ethics

Abstract

“Ordonomics” is a research program that has been developed at the Chair of Economic Ethics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. It holds that business actors (persons and organizations) can employ morality as a “factor of production”, and that business ethics can be based on a specific rational-choice analysis that is fully in line with the established tradition of economic thinking. With regard to practice, the main point is that ordonomics offers a guiding concept for creating win-win solutions that help business firms to do well by doing good. With regard to theory, ordonomics offers a conceptual framework for business ethics that makes ethics and economics coherent and mutually compatible with each other.

Keywords: ordonomics, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, rational choice, social dilemma, governance

JEL Classification: A12, D02, D21, D23, D62, L14, L21, M14, P12, Y80