The basic ideas

Abstract

This chapter examines the theoretical foundations of Governance Ethics and in doing so, it challenges pertinent aspects of the standard economic theory of the firm, in particular the exclusion of ethical and political aspects from the epistemic interests of economics. Governance ethics has to be understood as a contribution to the development of a new economics of organization. Its aim is to combine foundations and findings of ethics, social theory, organization theory and economics of governance in a productive way in order to improve the practical relevance and the theoretical explanatory force of an economic theory of the firm. What is at issue is the integration of organizational, social, psychological, cultural and above all moral phenomena in an economics of governance which takes an interdisciplinary understanding of economics and a comprehensive concept of governance as its starting point. This endeavor is based on the assumption that a general and at the same time application-oriented theory of economic organization and monitoring cannot be achieved without this ethical, social-theoretical and organization-theoretical extension of standard and mainstream economics.