HOW RELATIONALITY SHAPES BUSINESS AND ITS ETHICS

Just as Michael Porter's ''five forces'' provided a practical analytic al tool for describing the forces that shape competitive strategy, so business ethicists ought to provide business leaders with a workable f ramework for understanding the sources of ethical obligations. The for ces that shape competitive strategy vary according to time and industr y, but are anchored in an ultimate criteria of profitability. Similari ly, ethics can use a set of analytical categories that identify the re levant forces to business ethics on the basis of relationality. This p aper first argues that relationality based on naturalism is the primar y, plausible value for ethics. Second, it adapts a tripartite dialecti c from scholars William Frederick and Michael Novak to describe the re lational categories with which business must contend. Third, it uses t hese forces in a way similar to Porter's competitive forces to offer a n analytical language familiar to managers in order to characterize bu siness ethics.