Discourse and Descriptive Ethics in Business

Discourse and descriptivebusiness ethics

Gjalt deGraafn

Watson (2003: 168) claims that ‘although increas-ing academic attention is being paid to businessethics, the ways in which ethical considerationscome into activities and decisions of organiza-tional managers have been examined in a verylimited way’. This article contributes by suggest-ing that an interesting way to study moralmanagerial decisions is studying these decisionsin their discursive context. This paper examinerswhy and how discourse analysis can aid descrip-tive business ethics.In this article, first it will be claimed that the

internal dynamics within organizations rendermethodological individualism in business ethicshard to defend. Therefore, describing the moralside of a company by describing the moral part ofmanagerial decision making provides just a frag-ment of the whole picture. Somehow, the businesscontext wherein managerial decisions are madealso contains important moral information.Causalities that transcend individuals are pro-posed as a unit of analysis in empirical moralresearch, namely discourse. It is suggested that aninteresting method for describing (moral) deci-sions of managers is looking at the way managerstalk about their reality. After describing what ismeant by discourse in this article, it is suggestedhow discourse analysis could be used in descrip-tive business ethics. Special attention will be paidto genealogical discourse analyses, and to thestudy of storylines and metaphors to reveal moralsides of managerial decision making.

Studying (moral) managerial decisions

Before discussing the moral description of man-agerial decisions, first it should be explained whatis meant by ‘descriptive ethics’. Descriptive ethicsconcerns the factual description and explanationof moral behaviour. It is therefore a non-normative approach in ethics; it tries to describewithout taking a moral position.1 This contrastswith normative approaches like applied ethics:prescriptive ethics. A warning from Beauchamp(1991: 34) is warranted, however: ‘It would be amistake to regard these categories as expressingmutually exclusive approaches’. It will be madeclear that the normative and non-normativeapproaches can never be purely distinguished.The distinction, however, is useful for a betterunderstanding of the different areas of businessethics.Descriptive ethics in current business ethics is

often centered on concepts like choice and themoment of decision making (Parker 1998). Thedecision is to some the end-point of businessethics, because it is, as Parker (1998: 291) writes,the moment where judgements are translated intosome kind of practice. That is the point whereethics can determine behaviour. Many scholarswho believe strongly in using one of the classicmoral theories within business ethics (see Soule2002: 114/115, for several important contribu-tions),2 focus on managers and how they shouldmake individual choices. Implicitly it is assumedthat the conscious decisions of managers deter-mine what actions organizations undertake. So-ciety and human behaviour are viewed as theoutcomes of conscious (moral) decisions; the

nPost-doctoral researcher, Department of Public Administration andOrganization Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit,Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

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Business Ethics: A European ReviewVolume 15 Number 3 July 2006

functioning of organizations is seen as the out-come of (conscious) managerial decisions. Thus, ifmanagers get good moral advice (and abide by it),the organization will behave in a good moralsense. This is why the part of business ethics thatleans heavily on classic philosophical ethicaltheories has clear affinities with choice-baseddecision theories. As March (1997: 10) writes:

The study of how decisions happen provides asetting for a cluster of contested issues abouthuman action. The first issue is whether decisionsare to be viewed as choice-based or rule-based. Dothe decision-makers pursue the logic of conse-quence, making choices among alternatives byevaluating their consequences in terms of priorpreferences? Or do they pursue a logic of appro-priateness, fulfilling identities or roles by recogniz-ing situations and following rules that matchappropriate behavior to the situations they en-counter?

Even though the durability of the choice-basedview in the literature is impressive, there is – andalways has been – much critique, especially fromrule-based theorists, who generally deny theprinciples of choice-based theorists. They arguethat the logic behind decision-making processes isfundamentally different. Rather than rational,anticipatory, calculated, consequential action,they argue that decision making is the result ofa logic of appropriateness, obligation, duty andrules, whereby decision makers can go againsttheir conscious preferences (March 1997: 17).Within choice-based theories these routine rulesare regarded as established in a conscious rationalprocess. To rule-based theories the underlyinglogic of decisions, however, is completely differ-ent, and goes much further than routine decisions.Within choice-based theories, the process of

weighing alternatives is based on values, i.e.individual preferences over alternative outcomes.Facts and values are often clearly separated.Values come into play after the process ofinformation gathering. Prescriptive ethics tradi-tionally focuses on this moment. The prevailingnotion is that ethics and the non-ethical languagethat describes and explains situations and eventsbelong to separate domains. However, as will be

argued in the rest of this section, it is questionablewhether moral decisions determine behaviour,especially for organizations. If they do not,descriptive business ethics is not satisfactorywhen studying only the moral part of decisionmaking.Values play a role in complex ways; so complex,

in fact, that we are, for the most part, unaware ofit. In that sense, systematic reflection on valuescan determine only a small part of our behaviour.When managers make decisions, all kinds of(unconscious) values play a role, but so do manyother things. Klamer (2000: 2) writes:

Even the purchase of an ice-cream may involve anegotiation among many different little and bigvalues. Because I like to follow my senses I mightindulge yet because I also value being healthyI may refrain. Or I may have an agreement withmy partner to reduce my weight and so have tofactor the value of being trustworthy . . . And ifI have decided to enjoy myself that very moment,will I care about whom to give my business? Howmuch do I value the values of a socially mindedand therefore high-cost company that I will payextra for its product? Do I care about the estheticsof the place? Does it matter who the othercustomers are? No algorithm will do justice tothe complicated process that constitutes thepurchase of an ice-cream.

Managers will almost never base decisions onlyon what they perceive as explicit moral values orarguments (Bird & Waters 1989). No one’sactions are based on only conscious decisionssolely based on explicit moral values. Yet, manyvalues play a role in every decision, and many ofthem are unreflected. Describing the moral sideof a company by describing the moral partof managerial decision making provides just afragment of the whole picture. Somehow, thebusiness context wherein managerial decisions aremade also contains important moral information(Butterfield et al. 2000). This is also what rule-based decision theorists argue.Managers have a hard time identifying the

ethical dimensions of their decisions in the firstplace. Donaldson & Dunfee state (1995: 87):‘Managers are situated in a web of (sometimes)conflicting loyalties and duties – some legal


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(contractual and otherwise) and others personal(e.g., friendships, familial obligations, and soforth)’. Part of the problem in most cases is theproblem of causality. Often the causality of asituation of managers is so complex, that theoutcome of a (moral) choice cannot be known atthe moment of making a decision, making it veryhard to ‘know’ for managers what is the rightthing to do. Managers, as Jackall (1988: 12)noticed, face series of intractable dilemmas thatoften demand compromises with traditionalmoral beliefs. Jackall (1988: 13):

The moral dilemmas posed by bureaucratic workare, in fact, pervasive, taken for granted, and, atthe same time, regularly denied. Managers do,however, continually assess their decisions, theirorganizational milieux, and especially each otherto ascertain which moral rules-in-use apply ingiven situations. Such assessments are alwayscomplex and most often intuitive.

At the core of some theories in business ethics(especially choice-based) that concentrate onstudying moral decisions is a methodologicalindividualism. Methodological individualism statesthat behaviour of an organization is alwaysreducible to the behaviour of the individuals thatare members of the organization. As March &Olsen (1989: 4) write, within such a perspective,the behaviour of an organization is the conse-quence of the interlocking choices by individualsand subunits, each acting in terms of expectationsand preferences manifested at those levels. Out-comes at the system level are thought to bedetermined by the interactions of individualsacting consistently in terms of individual beha-viour, whatever they may be. Methodologicalindividualism is inclined to see moral phenomenaas the aggregate consequence of individualbehaviour. The world, in this view, is in largepart the outcome of choice. And in decisionmaking, processes are viewed in terms of (com-plex) interactions among elementary events oractors.Methodological individualism, however, has

often been criticized (March & Olsen 1989,Bauman 1993); it simply does not explain manysocial phenomena around organizations. The

impact of the consequences of our combinedactions can often not be traced back to individualdecisions. This leads to some problems forbusiness ethicists: routine decisions, all morallyacceptable from an individual standpoint, canlead to disastrous outcomes. The world is notshaped by conscious individual decisions; theorganizational world is not simply a sum ofindividual decisions. Especially in the organiza-tional world, individual (moral) decisions are, atbest, a tiny part of the whole picture. Bauman(1993: 18) states: ‘Sin without sinners, crimewithout criminals, guilt without culprits! Respon-sibility for the outcome is, so to speak, floating,nowhere finding its natural haven’.Many good arguments about economic, natural

or social forces, for instance, can be presented toargue that institutions (not in the sense oforganizations or buildings, more in a sense ofcollective ways of thinking, feeling and doing)determine, in large part, the decisions andbehaviour of people (e.g. Foucault 1977). Thereare dynamics that transcend individuals and theseinternal dynamics transcend individual behaviourand decisions. What managers think, feel, intendor want is not all-important because many supra-individual causalities have to be taken intoaccount. Organizations have their own dynamics.For descriptive ethics, it is therefore importantthat we do not only focus on (moral) decisions byindividuals. To study moral managerial decisions,the context is of crucial importance. Within thebody of work on managerial decision making (e.g.Shapira 1997), this has often been acknowledgedbefore (e.g. O’Connor 1997). Also, most businessethicists seem to agree on the importance ofthe business context within business ethics, bothfor description and prescription. To give just oneexample, Soule (2002: 116) states: ‘An adequatemoral strategy needs to be relevant to the contextof commercial life’. However, how the contestedconcept of context should be understood turnsout to be problematic. In the rest of this article,causalities that transcend individuals are pro-moted as the unit of analysis in empirical moralresearch, namely discourse; discourse is usedto describe the context of managerial decisionmaking. Discourse theory allows us to represent


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decision making in considerable complexity: ‘Ittakes seriously March’s suggestion to studydecision-making in the context of human life’(O’Connor 1997: 318). Discourse analysis offers acontextual perspective in which decisions aremade, a perspective that many managerial deci-sion theories lack.

Language and morality

In past decades, discussions on the nature of truthhave profoundly affected social research. Insteadof assuming a given world ‘out there’, waiting tobe discovered, attention is being drawn toprocesses and ways through which the world isrepresented in language. The access we have to areality outside language is highly problematic.Language does not simply report facts; it is not asimple medium for the transport of meaning.What is meant by, and the effect of, the words ‘Iwant to do business with her’ depends entirely onthe context in which these words are spoken orwritten. Du Gay (1996: 47) states:

The meaning that any object has at any giventime is a contingent, historical achievement . . .theorists of discourse argue that the meaning ofobjects is different from their mere existences, andthat people never confront objects as mereexistences, in a primal manner; rather these objectsare always articulated within particular discursivecontexts.

Perhaps it is the case, as some philosophers claim,that what exists in the world is a necessity(independent of human beings or language), butthings can only be differentiated through lan-guage. The world itself does not give meaning toobjects; this is done through language. In otherwords, although things might exist outside lan-guage, they get their meanings through language.This view of language implies the possibility of

describing the business context as a discursiveconstruction. The meaning of anything alwaysexists in particular discursive contexts; meaning isalways contextual, contingent and historical. Forbusiness studies, language is not just seen asreflective of what goes on in an organization.

Discourses and organizations are one and thesame. ‘That is, organizing becomes communicat-ing through the intersection of discourse and text’(Putnam 2000: 225). Our so-called ‘organizationalactions’ are embedded in discursive fields and areonly recognizable as practices through discourse.Organizational discursive practices exist only inthe organizational surroundings and practicesthey are part of.There have been many interpretations of

discourse and discourse theory (see Alvesson &Karreman 2000). In daily language, for example,a discourse can be defined as conversation. Withinthe social sciences, the concept has a widermeaning. In this article, a discourse is defined as‘a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts andcategorizations that are produced, reproducedand transformed in a particular set of practicesand through which meaning is given to physicaland social realities’ (Hajer 1995: 44). For example,psychiatric discourse brought the idea of theunconscious into existence in the 19th century (cf.Foucault 1977, Phillips & Hardy 2002: 3).Discourses contain groups of statements thatprovide a way of talking and thinking aboutsomething, thereby giving meaning to socialreality. Discourses are not ‘out there’ betweenreality and language; they are not just a group ofsigns – they refer to practices that systematicallyform the objects we speak of. Discourse is not justa ‘way of seeing – a worldview – but is embeddedin social practices that reproduce the ‘way ofseeing’ as ‘truth’. Discourses are constitutive ofreality (de Graaf 2001). What is and is not true,the things we discuss – these cannot be seenoutside discourse; they are internal to it. Bylooking at what people say and write, we can learnhow their world is constructed. The concept ofdiscourse is often used to overcome oppositionslike ‘action and structure’ or ‘individual andstructure’. As discourses, as used here, institu-tionalize the way of talking about something,they produce knowledge and thereby shapesocial practices. Social interactions cannot beunderstood without the discourses that givethem meaning. Discourses function as a structureto behaviour; they both enable and constrainit.



Over the last two decades, organization studieshave given much attention to language anddiscourse. Putnam & Fairhurst (2001) give a goodoverview of the developments in the area ofdiscourse theory in organization studies. Alvesson& Karreman (2000) discuss the variety of waysin which the concept of discourse is used inorganization studies. For more on discourseanalyses, one could mention Dijk (1985) andTitscher et al. (2000). Metaphors have beenstudied extensively (e.g. Yanow 1992, Alvesson1993, Palmer & Dunford 1996), as have conceptssuch as trope (e.g. Skoldberg 1994), symbolism(e.g. Morgan 1986) and narrative (e.g. Wilkins1983, Deetz 1986, Boje 1991, O’Connor 1995,2000, Czarniawska 1997, Dicke 2001).The field of business ethics, however, does not

pay much attention to (some form of) discoursetheory. Among the exceptions are Parker (1998)and Shapiro (1992). Also, Cheney & Christensen(2001) discuss corporate rhetoric (not internaldiscourses, but communication that is directed tooutsiders of the organization) on corporate socialresponsibility from a discursive perspective. De-scriptive ethical research in the tradition of Jackall(1988), Bird & Waters (1989) and Kunda (1992),looks at what and how moral issues are an issue inthe daily life of managers. How do managers talkabout ethics and what moral issues do theyencounter? Furthermore, in the rare so-calledgenealogical discourse analyses (Foucault 1977),the role of power is central. Building on the workof Foucault, some researchers (Clegg 1989) withinorganization studies have shown how discourses,with their inherent worldview, give some anadvantage over others, which has obvious moralimplications.Like meaning, values are immanent features of

language. Language is not a neutral means ofcommunication, the use of language containsnormative commitments. When we give meaningto something, we are also valuing it. Even thougha Durkheimian view is clearly not endorsed here(with an emphasis here on language instead ofinstitutions), there is a parallel. To Durkheimsocial institutions, collective ways of thinking,feeling and doing are not empty but full of values(values give meaning to relationships). In similar

fashion, discursive practices are not empty; theyare filled with values. By giving something aname, we highlight certain aspects. But in thatsame process, all other possible qualities areplaced in the background or even ignored. Values,causal assumptions and problem perceptionsaffect each other. In our daily lives, we jump sooften between normative and factual statementsthat we do not realize how much our views offacts determine whether we see problems in thefirst place. But when we study our discussionsmore carefully, we can see that the ‘is’ and ‘ought’are intertwined. Seemingly technical positions indiscourses conceal normative commitments. Dis-courses make more than claims of reality – theyaccomplish what Schon & Rein (1994) have calledthe ‘normative leap’ or the connection between arepresentation of reality and its consequences foraction. Within most versions of discourse theory,the strict dichotomy between facts and valuesceases to make sense. Facts and values here arenot treated as ontologically different; discoursetheory treats them as different sides of the samecoin. The ‘is’ and ‘ought’ shape each other incountless ways. Language is thus neither neutralnor static in communicating meaning. The aware-ness that language does not neutrally describe theworld is important for business ethicists. Subtlelinguistic forms and associated symbolic actionsshape our convictions and presuppositions (Twist1994: 79).Discourses contain the conditions of possibility

of what can and cannot be said. The fact that amoral question arises in business is as interestingas what question is asked, as is the fact that manymoral questions are not asked. Every questionthat is asked gets some form of an answer whichhas consequences. Every (non-)decision of anymanager in any company is a social activity andaffects people’s lives (Hackley & Kitchen 1999:23). In a specific discourse, different moralquestions are raised than in others. As soon asmanagers of soccer clubs start to talk about socceras a ‘product’ (a relatively new development), anew world opens up around the same old gamewith new opportunities, managerial problems andnew moral issues (Hawkes 1998). Discoursesnot only help us understand that a certain moral




question is asked, they also give us the spectrumof possible solutions to moral problems beingraised, i.e. what is or is not seen as a viablesolution to a specific moral problem. It can besuspected that the framing of moral questions bymanagers (Schon & Rein 1994), differs frommoral questions framed by professional ethicists.Where moral philosophers frame moral questionsfor managers based on their philosophical dis-courses, managers (needing a ‘tractable morality’,see de Graaf 2005) frame their moral questions ona daily basis.Although Aristotelians and pragmatics like

Dewey (1948) intensely consider deliberation andconversation, there are clear differences with thediscourse theory as described above. Aristotelianethicists are usually looking for virtues to benamed, virtues that are good. Most discoursetheorists though, want to stay away from any-thing associated with essentialism. Instead oflooking for virtues for individuals, discoursetheorists want to problematize the central role ofindividuals (at least the central role of individualsin research). Individuals are part of organizations;they operate in discursive contexts that determine(at least in great part) their behaviour. Discoursesthus focus more on context than on individualsand their virtues. The extent to which individualsare influenced by their contexts gives rise toextensive discussions about their autonomy andfreedom. These discussions (interesting as theyare) are here left aside. What is important is thatthe behaviour of individuals is, at least to a highdegree, influenced by the organizational entities inwhich they work. And that affects the morality ofmanagers. Jackall (1988: 192) concludes:

. . . because moral choices are inextricably tied topersonal fates, bureaucracy erodes internal and evenexternal standards of morality not only in matters ofindividual success and failure but in all the issuesthat managers face in their daily work. Bureaucracymakes its own internal rules and social context theprincipal moral gauges for action . . . Within suchcrucibles, managers are continually tested as theycontinually test others. They turn to each other formoral cues for behavior and come to fashion specificsituational moralities for specific significant others intheir world.

Discourse analysis and descriptivebusiness ethics

An interesting additional method to traditionalones of describing moral decisions of managers, islooking at the way managers talk about and viewreality: describing their discourses. Instead oflooking at the moral agents or the organizationas a moral entity, one can study an organization’sinternal discourse. In that sense, individuals areneither central to, nor the proposed objects of,study (methodological individualism); the objectof study is discourses. By describing discourses ofmanagers, moral aspects come to the fore.How does research with discourse theory work?

A researcher conducts discourse descriptions oranalyses, the basis of which are texts (the materialmanifestation of discourses). All verbal andwritten language can be considered. A discourseanalysis shows which discursive objects andsubjects emerge in social practices, and whichconceptualizations are used. Consequently, whatis left out in social practices also emerges. It is notthe purpose of discourse analysis to retrieve whatthe authors exactly meant or felt when writing orspeaking, or what interests they had. Discourseanalysis is not a search for meaning, empirical orotherwise, of texts. The analysis focuses on theeffects of the texts on other texts. They aredescribed by studying the language practicesamong similar language practices. Hajer (1995:54) states: ‘Discourse analysis investigates theboundaries between . . . the moral and theefficient, or how a particular framing of thediscussion makes certain elements appear fixed orappropriate while other elements appear proble-matic’.A discourse analysis inquires into forms of

problematization and offers a narrative aboutthe production of problems. Why is somethingconsidered a problem (or not)? It does notconcentrate on answering the problem at hand.In other words, when doing a discourse analysis,one can establish the limits of what can andcannot be said in a particular context, whatFoucault (1977) called ‘the conditions of possibi-lity’ of a discourse. A discourse analysis canidentify the rules and resources that set the



boundaries of what can be said, thought and donein a particular (organizational) context or situa-tion. Mauws (2000: 235) states: ‘Thus, if we are tocomprehend how decisions are made . . . it is byexamining the conditions of possibility in relationto which these statements are formulated, that is,the often implicit institutionalized speech prac-tices that guide what is and what is not likely to besaid (Bourdieu)’. By conducting discourse ana-lyses in the field of business ethics, the contex-tuality of ethics is taken seriously. It gives contentto the vague notion of ‘putting moral problemsinto context’ (Hoffmaster 1992: 1427).Discourse descriptions do not only help us

understand that a certain moral question is asked,they also give us the spectrum of possiblesolutions to the moral problems being raised, i.e.what is or is not seen as a viable solution to aspecific moral problem. A problem definitioninevitably predisposes certain solutions, and viceversa (Wildavsky 1987, Rochefort & Cobb 1994,Kingdon 1995, Eeten 1998: 6). Compare this withthe following quotation from Schon & Rein(1993: 153):

When participants . . . name and frame the . . .situation in different ways, it is often difficult todiscover what they are fighting about. Someonecannot simply say, for example, ‘Let us comparedifferent perspectives for dealing with poverty,’because each framing of the issue of poverty islikely to select and name different features of theproblematic situation. We are no longer able to saythat we are comparing different perspectives on‘the same problem,’ because the problem itself haschanged.

Asking a (moral) question assumes knowing whatwould constitute an answer to it.

Studying managerial decisions of bankers

In Holland the three largest banks dealing withprivate businesses are ING, ABN-Amro andRabobank. Each of the three banks would arguethat they differ from each other. Rabobank, forexample, is a co-operative, not listed on any stockexchange. Therefore it does not have to satisfyshareholders and, according to Rabobank, this

means more than just a different legal way ofdoing business. Rabobank claims that (partly)because they do not have to make a profit tosatisfy shareholders, they treat their clientsdifferently. And they claim to care more aboutthe local economy than their competitors do.One of the many ways in which the three banks

could differ are the decisions they make towardsrequests for a loan by business start-ups. Theproblem with a business start-up for banks is thatthey pose a higher risk. Many new companies gobankrupt in the first year of their existence.By understanding how bankers make their

choices with respect to start-ups, a discoursedescription can render visible the discursiveformation within which bankers speak. It canidentify the rules about the limits of what can andwhat cannot be said within a banker’s discourse.A discourse analysis can first of all try to makeclear how the banker sees himself, what hisidentity is. Then it can try to show how theidentity of the banker is matched to a situation inwhich a loan for a start-up is decided. It has goodopportunities to find rules that managers applythat are not financial norms, and that the bankersthemselves are not consciously aware of. Maybethe manager sees himself and his business assomething essential to the economic developmentin his region, which could lead to favourableimpressions of business start-ups. Or maybe he isyoung and trying to make a fast career within hisnational bank organization, and is very concernedwith avoiding big financial risks for his localbank, because the national bank is judging himvery heavily on avoiding ‘mistakes’. This examplewould lead to very stringent decision rules forbusiness start-ups. A discourse analysis could alsocompare banks in that way. What are thesimilarities and what are the differences betweenthe identities of local bank directors? Rabobankclaims that it pays great attention to the region aspecific bank office is located in. Is that reflectedin the way the local bank directors talk aboutstart-ups and the decision process about whetherto give them a loan?A discourse analysis by De Graaf (2001),3 a

study on bankers’ conceptualizations of theircustomers, concluded that there are five different




discourses about customers among Dutch bank-ers. These discourses contain many aspects aboutthe job of a banker and conceptualizations oftheir customers. The discourse descriptions givevaluable information about the context of man-agerial decisions. It is shown how bankers in thediscourse of Rabobank make more favourabledecisions towards giving loans to business start-ups: they use a discourse where helping to start abusiness is seen as a moral question; others donot. The latter will ask themselves moral ques-tions about start-up company loans but lookprimarily at the financial risk, and ask themselvesprimarily financial questions.As stated before, in discourses factual and

valuational statements are intertwined. Differentways of looking at the factual world lead todifferent valuations of it and vice-versa. Themoral problems managers have are always em-bedded in a context. Morals are always situa-tional. In talking about values, bank managersfrom a discourse wherein the relationship with thecustomer is a commercial one, immediately startto talk about fraud and how to prevent it (deGraaf 2001). Moral issues seen by bankers – thetreatment of start-ups, environmental issues,using the bank to improve the region, dealingwith sponsor money, having a customer infinancial difficulty, whether to treat clients differ-ently, when to be completely honest to customers,how to negotiate with customers, etc. – areindissolubly tied to factual images a banker hasof his customers. The moral questions and thefactual images are part of the same discourse. Bygiving the best discourse description possible, thedifferences in moral stances between discoursesbecome apparent by contrasting them.

Genealogical discourse analyses

Foucauldian genealogical studies are a specialform of discourse analysis. Within his so-calledarchaeology, Foucault (1970, 1972) looked forspecific forms of ‘problematization’, how thesubject and knowledge were connected. Withinarchaeology, by using a grammar in its descrip-tions that replaces the subject with consciousness

by a subject as the receiver of social meaning, staticconcepts are made fluid in a historical process.Within genealogy, Foucault (e.g. 1977) looked forthe way forms of problematizations are shaped byother practices. Shapiro (1992: 29) states:

Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patientlydocumentary. Committed to inquiry, it seeksendlessly to dissolve the coherence of systems ofintelligibility that give individual and collectiveidentities to persons/peoples and to the orders thathouse them by recreating the process of descentwithin which subjectivities and objectivities areproduced.

The role of power is now central. There isconsiderable power in structured ways of viewingreality. Power is not defined as a feature of aninstitution or person but relationally. Building onthe work of Foucault, some researchers withinbusiness studies have shown how discourses, withtheir inherent worldview, give some an advantageover others. See, for example, Clegg (1989).As soon as the power concept comes in, it

should get the immediate attention of businessethicists. To reveal the forces or power of adiscourse, genealogy has to go back to themoment in which an interpretation or identitybecame dominant within a discourse. Habermas(1984) tried to improve conversation. Genealo-gists, on the other hand, are suspicious of allconversation because they recognize that systemsof intelligibility exist at the expense of alterna-tives.A genealogical discourse analysis within busi-

ness ethics can analyse how power and knowledgefunction in discourse and organizations, how therules and resources that delineate the limits ofwhat can be said are working. Foucault (1977,1984) has shown how power works through‘subjectification’. Every discourse claims to talkabout reality. In doing so, it classifies what is trueand what is not, what is permitted and what isnot, what is desirable and what is not, and so on.Truth and power are closely related. As Foucault(1984: 74) stated: ‘Truth is linked in a circularrelation with systems of power which induceand which extend it’: a ‘regime of truth’. Poweris not just repressive; it is always productive.



A genealogical discourse analysis can reveal someof the ways power functions and can thus add tothe understanding of the meaning of decisions inorganizations. It can follow back in history thetraces of a discourse and reveal the contingenciesof a current discourse.

Storylines and metaphors inbusiness ethics

Discursive practices are morally shaped in manyways and discourse theory offers several possibi-lities to study how. One is studying storylines andmetaphors in discursive practices. When one has acertain worldview and uses a certain discourse,one takes a position within discussions in terms ofthe particular concepts, metaphors and stories ofthat discourse. For business ethics, it is importantthat a discourse analysis can show how forces inlanguage influence moral positions by looking atthe role metaphors and storylines play within adiscourse. Discourse analysis can also gain in-sights into the structure, dynamics and directionsof conflicting discourses, like narrative strategies.Stories play an important role in people’s lives;

in large part, they give meaning to them (Watson1994). If you want to get to know someone, youask for a life story. Stories are about what isimportant and what is not. Philosophers likeJohnson (1993) or McIntyre (1991) would go sofar as to argue that stories are central to creatinghuman understanding: ‘I can only answer thequestion ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer theprior question, ‘Of what story or stories do I findmyself a part?’ ’ (O’Connor 1997: 304). Fisher(1987: xiii) claims that ‘all forms of humancommunication need to be seen fundamentallyas stories’. It is therefore not surprising thatstories are also important to studies of theorganization. Herbert Simon argued that storiesallow decision making to take place. Manyscholars agree that stories contain much informa-tion about an organization and are efficient atconveying information (Roe 1994: 9). Boje (1991:106) argues: ‘People engage in a dynamic processof incremental refinement of their stories of newevents as well as ongoing reinterpretations of

culturally sacred story lines’. ‘In sum people donot just tell stories, they tell stories to enact anaccount of themselves and their community’ (Boje1995: 1001).The assumption in this article that meaning is

produced in linguistic form fits well with exploringstories. Stories are simply one type of linguisticform. Stories are elements of a discourse withcertain characteristics. Stories are especially im-portant for ethicists: they contain values (ideasabout good and bad, right and wrong); they areabout good and evil. Within stories, the ‘is’ and‘ought’ are closely connected. Even if they seem togive simple factual descriptions, an enormousimplicit normative power lies within narratives.Hayden White (1980: 26) writes: ‘What else couldnarrative closure exist of than the passage of onemoral order to another? . . . Where, in anyaccount of reality, narrativity is present, we canbe sure that morality or a moralizing impulse ispresent too’. According to White, the events thatare actually recorded in the narrative appear ‘real’precisely insofar as they belong to an order ofmoral existence, just as they derive their meaningfrom their placement in this order. It is becausethe events described conduce to the establishmentof social order or fail to do so that they find aplace in the narrative attesting to their reality(Ettema & Glasser 1988: 10). Or, as Randels(1998: 1299) put it, ‘Worldview narratives notonly describe particular understandings of busi-ness, but have important normative considera-tions. They are not merely stories, but construehow we do, can, or should view the world, andhow business people and corporations act, can actand should act’. A narrative analysis can thereforeshed light on how different moral positions relateto each other. It shows how narrative structures(partly) determine moral positions and identities,and how they thereby influence the actions ofindividuals and organizations; and how internaldynamics of a discourse can influence the moralposition that is taken.Scholars have pointed to the moral significance

of metaphors in business studies and in manyempirical organizational discourse analyses, therole of metaphors has been brought to the fore(O’Connor 1995, 1997, 2000). Weick (1979: 50),




for example, pointed to the operational conse-quences of metaphor. Just like stories, metaphorsare important to business ethicists because of the(often implicit) moral baggage they carry. De-scribing metaphors in discursive practices canbring clarity to how metaphors, in part, morallyshape discursive practices, i.e. how morality isembedded in discursive practices.

The status of business ethics

When values are an integral part of any discourse,they are an integral part of the business ethicsdiscourse. The thesis that meaning is constructedby and through discourse has implications for thenotion of ethics itself. It is, as Hackley (1999: 38)notes, ‘inseparable from ways of talking aboutand doing ethics and ethical things’. The descrip-tive ethics of the researcher comprises a moralcomponent; descriptive ethics contains valuesitself and does not just mirror reality (cf. Willmott1998: 80). Business ethicists’ studies play a role inwhat Foucault called ‘the regime of truth’.It was often concluded in business studies

literature that ‘independence’ and ‘accountability’of employees were good for a company in abusiness sense. At the same time, business ethicistsconcluded they were good in a moral sense.Within companies, it is important who speaks ofmorals, what their viewpoints are and whoseinterests are represented. In a nutshell, how isethics turned into a discourse? How do the formsof problematization of managers fit with forms ofproblematization of business ethics? The Foul-cauldian question becomes: to what extent isbusiness ethics used as a power tool to disciplineworkers? This is what Bauman argues too. Heaccuses organizations (bureaucracies) in oursociety of ‘instrumentalising’ ethics to achievethe goals of the organization rather than ethicsbeing the systematic reflection of the goals of theorganization. When opinion within a manage-ment discourse is that employees steal too muchfrom the company, they can hire ‘integrityconsultants’. These consultants do not evaluatethe goals or the products of the organization, nordo they look at whether employees are treated

kindly. Instead, they are used to disciplineemployees with the use of an ethical discourse.

Conclusion

When managerial decisions are examined, some-how the business context must be included in theanalysis. First in this article, problems withchoice-based theories of managerial decisionswere discussed. Also, methodological individual-ism turned out to be problematic. In this article,causalities that transcend individuals were theproposed unit of analysis in empirical moralresearch, namely discourse. After discussing dis-course theory, the conclusion is that (the differentforms of) discourse theory can help studyingmanagerial decisions in many ways. It was shownhere what a discourse analysis within businessethics could look like. Special attention was paidto genealogical studies, stories and metaphors.Here, both language and the subject are

proposed to be treated as contingents instead oflooking for essential, deep criteria or fundamen-tals. Starting from the assumption that the ‘worldout there’ is constructed by discursive conceptionsand that they are collectively sustained andcontinually renegotiated in the process of makingsense (cf. Parker 1992: 3), the role of language inconstituting reality was seen as central. It isthrough discourses that we view and value things.Therefore, the specific discourse a manager is inhas many consequences. When we describe howbank managers talk about their customers, thedescription says a lot about how the banker treatscustomers. In the same profession, managers treatclients differently. This is interesting for clients,managers and, not least, business ethicists.

Notes

1. As will become clear, a purely non-normativedescription is never possible.

2. Utilitarianism is often used, for example, in cost-benefit analyses. It ‘is a powerful theory thatcertainly fits in well with our moral intuitions,particularly within the context of the businesscommunity’ (Kaptein & Wempe 2002: 74). Bob



Solomon applied ‘virtue ethics’ to business ethics(Solomon 1992). Solomon came up with four basicvirtues for companies: honesty, fairness, trust andtoughness. Scholars who use some sort of integrityapproach, such as Kaptein & Wempe (2002),usually try to find the right mix between the threeclassic moral theories. Scholars like Ronald Green(1994) take a more deontological approach: theydefine clear moral guidelines and principles to whichcompanies always have to adhere. A theorist likeFreeman, with a ‘fair contracts’ approach, reflectsthe assumptions and methodology of the modernliberal Rawlsian theory of justice and propertyrights (Sorell 1998: 26). The stakeholder approach,like the one by Donaldson and Preston, has someaffinities with utilitarian notions. Like the utilitarianmoral theorists, stakeholder theorists struggle withthe following problems: whom to identify as morallyrelevant? How to accommodate conflicting inter-ests? And what to do with moral claims that areincomparable? Answers should lead to a situationthat is best for all. Contract theorists, such asDonaldson & Dunfee (2000), do not so much gettheir inspiration from the classic moral theories, butmake use of other classic philosophers like Hobbes,Locke and Rousseau.

3. In this case, Q-methodology was used as theresearch method. However, other methods likenarrative analysis or ethnography could equally beused for discourse analysis (cf. de Graaf 2005).

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Discourse and Descriptive Ethics in Business

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