HOW DO MANAGERS THINK ABOUT MARKET ECONOMIES AND MORALITY - EMPIRICALINQUIRIES INTO BUSINESS-ETHICAL THINKING PATTERNS

How do managers think about the relationship between the pursuit of ec onomic success and ethical demands? This paper presents the main resul ts of a qualitative-empirical study (Ulrich and Thielemann, 1992). The range of thinking patterns displayed by Swiss managers in this field of tension is elucidated and typologized. The results are then compare d with those yielded by other studies on managerial ethics. Although d ie comparisons reveal essential parallels, the findings of previous in vestigations are interpreted in a considerably different manner. In pa rticular it is shown that, on the strength of a systematic conception of the fundamental problem of business ethics, the frequently heard as sertion that the vast majority of managers are ethical opportunists mu st be revised. The internationally prevailing thinking pattern among m anagers does not prove to be ethical opportunism or even cynicism but economism, i.e. the ethical conviction that economically ''appropriate '' action in itself is ethically good as such.