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How Entrepreneurs Deal with Ethical Challenges – An Application of the Business Ethics Synergy Star Technique

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  • David Robinson
  • Per Davidsson
  • Hennie Mescht
  • Philip Court

Abstract

Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine “what is rightâ€\x9D. There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur’s personal world-view. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2007

Suggested Citation

  • David Robinson & Per Davidsson & Hennie Mescht & Philip Court, 2007. "How Entrepreneurs Deal with Ethical Challenges – An Application of the Business Ethics Synergy Star Technique," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 411-423, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:71:y:2007:i:4:p:411-423
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9148-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Baumol, William J., 1996. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 3-22, January.
    2. Bucar, Branko & Glas, Miroslav & Hisrich, Robert D., 2003. "Ethics and entrepreneurs: An international comparative study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 261-281, March.
    3. Birley, Sue & Westhead, Paul, 1994. "A taxonomy of business start-up reasons and their impact on firm growth and size," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 7-31, January.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Leslie E. Sekerka & Derek Stimel, 2024. "Ethics from the Start: Embracing Professional Moral Courage in Entrepreneurial Decision-Making," Business & Entrepreneurship Journal, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 13(1), pages 1-1.
    3. Vallaster, Christine & Kraus, Sascha & Merigó Lindahl, José M. & Nielsen, Annika, 2019. "Ethics and entrepreneurship: A bibliometric study and literature review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 226-237.
    4. Sylvain Charlebois & Lianne Foti, 2017. "Using a Live Case Study and Co-opetition to Explore Sustainability and Ethics in a Classroom: Exporting Fresh Water to China," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 18(6), pages 1400-1411, December.

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