Purpose of the study
The authors claim that the primary determinant of this research is investigating and graphing the psychological formation of examinations of business ethics that were conducted in 1997-2006.
The analysis of the psychological construction of the business morality history is presented by using the methods of co-citation inquiry and examinations of social networks in the body of the article. The authors were able to determine the most relevant issuances and the prominent scholars along with interactions between these disseminations by interpreting citations and co-citations. Three aspects appear in this research: “ethical/unethical decision making, corporate governance and firm performance, and ethical principles and code of conduct” (Tseng, Duan, Tung, and Kung 587).
Audience
The audience of the research is broad. I consider this study to be not only for an expert audience but for the general public as well, as it contains background information, detailed explanations of the terms, and commentaries regarding the topic.
Subject
The subject of the research is the conceptions, ideology, and relations in contemporary business ethics.
Scope
The research is created by evaluating nearly 85 thousand noted quotations of approximately 3,060 editorials from three chronicles relevant to business ethics in the collection of data from the Social Sciences Citation Index and Service Civil International. Moreover, the authors accumulated information from each issue of the ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’.
Thesis
The authors of the research contemplate investigating the impact of particular scholars and fields of study in ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’. This research contains two focal points: to determine the authors of the most relevant publications and chapters in ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’ and to establish the subject of interest of these publications (Pilkington and Teichert 293). While focusing on the first target of the research, the authors audit the input of the authors to ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’. To establish the tendencies of disciplines in ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’, the categorization of publications had been used (Goodpaster 57).
Moreover, there are three steps of the research: selection, where the authors elect the collections of data and publications that can be used as a resource of business ethics literature; the accumulation and inquiry of information regarding the subject matter, publishers and their publications; and mapping of data, where the intellectual formation is marked to illustrate the proceeding of knowledge dissemination (Small 804).
Evidence
The authors have examined every article published in ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’ in ten years (from 1997 to 2006). Moreover, the research is created by evaluating nearly 85 thousand noted quotations of approximately 3,060 editorials from three chronicles relevant to business ethics in the collection of data from the Social Sciences Citation Index and Service Civil International.
Limits
The research is limited to the journal publications of ‘Ethics’, ‘Ethics and Behavior’ and ‘Journal of Business Ethics’ within ten years. As a result, the selection of publications might alter the universality of the study. Moreover, the approach of exploration of the study could not expel the possibility of self-citation (Latour 123).
Point of View
The authors underline the importance of changes in business ethics. They do not want to offer some dry facts but use some statistical data and want to offer some empirical base for people to understand better the citing process. They believe that business ethics requires a certain order and organization, and the current situation does not form a clear explanation of how people should treat an ethical aspect of the issue.
Concepts/Words
The authors find it effective and informative to organize information about the sources they rely on in a table format. Besides, they introduce three factors using which it is possible to underline the co-citation correlation matrix.
Use of Evidence
The project is based on the material by other researchers peer-reviewed and approved. All appropriate references are given. The material is used to substantiate the ideas. For example, the authors mention that there is a short supply of information about ethical decision-making processes within organizations. To support their ideas, they use several thoughts offered by Trevino, Hunt, and Vitell or Rest.
Conclusion
The primary target of the research was to investigate and site down the psychological formation of examinations of business ethics that were conducted in ten years by evaluating nearly 85 thousand noted quotations of approximately 3,060 editorials from three chronicles relevant to business ethics in the collection of data from Social Sciences Citation Index and Service Civil International (Wallace and Neroli 270). The authors were able to fulfill the goal of the study, namely to designate substantial publications and prominent authors. Furthermore, the interactions between these disseminations were ascertained by inspecting “citation, co-citation, and social network analysis” (Tseng, Duan, Tung, and Kung 593).
Implications
The value of the research lies in providing a relevant examination objective in the field of business ethics. The most substantial implication of the study is proficiency. The study helps scholars and experts to gain more knowledge in contemporary business ethics. The authors admit that it is possible to go deeper into this kind of work and combine the offered citation analysis with content analysis. Such improvement can help to determine and explain the presence of particular words in a text.
Personal Reaction
The article is sometimes hard to read due to the saturation with references. Still, I find this article rather educative as it clears up the current challenges of business ethics and explains how people can overcome them using the already known methods.
Strength of Case
The authors were able to provide persuasive points regarding the thesis of the study. The tables and images used throughout the article are a strong point that makes reading easier and even more interesting. Though the language was not easy for reading, the division of the chapters into sections helps to understand which parts are worth my attention at first.
Evaluation
Compared to the ‘Business Research Ethics: Participant Observer Perspectives’ by Wallace and Sheldon, the article provides more practical information about an intellectual structure of business ethics. I think the authors work hard with the material available. Their decision to underline each term and each point of business ethics is justified and requires no more explanations.
Quality
The quality of the research is immense because the authors try to combine their vision of the problems and solutions with the ideas offered by other sufficient researchers.
Works Cited
Goodpaster, Kenneth. “Business Ethics and Stakeholder Analysis.” Business Ethics Quarterly 1.1 (1991): 53–73. Print.
Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987. Print.
Pilkington, Alan and Tom Teichert. “Management of Technology: Themes, Concepts and Relationships.” Technovation 26.1 (2006): 288-299. Print.
Small, Henry. “Visualizing Science by Citation Mapping.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50.19 (1999): 799–813. Print.
Tseng, Hsing-Chau, Chi-Hsiang Duan, Hui-Lien Tung, and Hsiang-Jui Kung. “Modern Business Ethics Research: Concepts, Theories, and Relationships.” Journal of Business Ethics 91.1 (2010): 587-597. Print.
Wallace, Michelle and Sheldon Neroli. “Business Research Ethics: Participant Observer Perspectives.” Journal of Business Ethics 128.2 (2015): 267-277. Print.