Women’s Studies and Business Ethics: Toward a New Conversation

This latest book in the Ruffin Series in Business Ethics is the first work to analyze the significance of gender in the ethical management of business organizations. Scholars from the fields of business ethics and women’s studies come together in this book to offer fresh new perspectives on business ethics. The contributors examine the value of feminist theory and scholarship for business ethics, and from this examination four overarching themes emerge. The first theme is that corporations are socially constructed organizations that assume, in their practice and ideology, that men are the standard of measurement. Secondly, this work highlights the power of feminist critiques to bring gender into focus as a central organizing principle of economic life. The third theme explores the existence of frames, unexamined habits of mind that are taken for granted and prevent alternative ways of thinking, especially about the role of women at the periphery of organizations. The fourth theme is that business ethics itself has been feminized in its subordinate position relative to the dominant fields in the hierarchy of business management, such as finance and strategy.

Women’s Studies and Business Ethics brings together some of the most important thinkers on organizations and gender issues today. The confluence of experts in these hitherto disparate fields, and the rich and lively dialogue it produces, results in a book that will be fascinating reading for scholars, students, and professionals involved in all aspects of business and management.