A Practice Perspective on Business Ethics

The objective of this project is to enrich business ethics research both theoretically and empirically by answering the following questions:

- How do particular forms of speech and discourse shape ethics in organizations?
- How does discourse construct organizations and individuals as ethical actors; and what are the implications of the discourses for organizational and individual behaviour?
- How are actors able to draw upon and use discourse as a resource for business ethics?

The project is based on the premise that ethics is best understood and theorized as a form of practice, which means it is concerned with what managers actually do and experience in their everyday work. An organizational discursive perspective is adopted, in which discourses are viewed as important means of reproducing beliefs, values and norms such as ‘professional’ behaviour. The study will be conducted using video-ethnography by “shadowing” producers at the Finnish National Public Service Broadcasting Company for at least one year.