Best in Business Ethics Research

The Erasmus University ranks best in the Netherlands and in Europe, and is second worldwide when it comes to research and publications on the topic of business ethics. Researchers <link people muel-kaptein _blank>Muel Kaptein and <link people ben-wempe _blank>Ben Wempe, both ERIM members, are the leading authors in this field at Erasmus University. These results have just been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, based on a survey measuring the scientific research productivity in the area of business ethics over the past ten years. Only the American University of Pennsylvania scores higher in research and publications on the topic.

According to the survey, <link people muel-kaptein _blank>Muel Kaptein, professor of business ethics and integrity management, is the most productive researcher in this field. He is understandably pleased with the results. "The Erasmus University has been doing research in this field for many years now; our research is about the measurement and improvement of company ethics and integrity,” he says. “The methods we’ve developed are now being used worldwide by other researchers, and more significantly by companies.”

Kaptein notes that the Erasmus University also has an impressive legacy of research into corporate social responsibility and its ethical foundation. This, he asserts, fits in with the Dutch culture. “Especially in the Netherlands you will notice that corporate social responsibility is not only done because it scores well, but also because it simply is good to do”, he says. In his research there is a lot of attention to the range of ethical dilemmas with which companies and managers are confronted. "Dilemmas test and form the integrity of companies and employees. Our fundamental research is about the ethical dilemmas companies and employees can face, and how to deal with them."

In order to maintain and accelerate its front-running status in research on business ethics, the <link erim research centres behavioural_ethics _blank>Erasmus Centre of Behavioural Ethics (ECBE) recently has been launched. The ECBE fosters and promotes fundamental (social) psychological research into behavioural ethics; this research has implications for a wide variety of fields such as management, law, and social sciences in general.

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<link people ben-wempe _blank>Personal Homepage Muel Kaptein
Personal Homepage Ben Wempe
<link erim research centres behavioural_ethics _blank>Homepage ECBE
Article Business Ethics Research