Ethics in strategic thinking: Business processes and the global market collapse

Abstract

The authors discussed the reasons for the recent economic collapse as caused by the lack of large businesses and global corporations losing touch with the people they serve. Losing touch has caused a distancing of understanding of the customers as people by these businesses and corporations. An antidote to this is that decisions that have to be made in global businesses as well as domestic organizations reflect some level of empathy. The objective is to highlight the fact that these businesses are corporate citizens and in themselves must be aware of the culture in which they conduct themselves. The authors discuss how empathic decision-making can become part of the corporate fabric without losing any sense of appropriate business judgment. A process is defined to enable the empathic process. Finally, a straw man is set up to fund/enable the process while creating a positive and profitable business environment. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.