Economic and Social History

Research WORKSHOP, 1 March 2017

Approaches to Ethical Challenges in Business and Economics: Religious and Cultural Contributions

Venue: University of Innsbruck, Claudiana, (Herzog-Friedrich-Straße 3, 2nd floor)

The workshop is organised jointly by the Austria-Israel Academic Network Innsbruck (AIANI) in cooperation with the Research Area “Cultural Encounters – Cultural Conflicts” of the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and the School of Business Administration at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) in Rishon-le-Zion (Israel)

Programm
1 March 2017 (PDF Version)

09.00

• Welcome and Introduction
  

09:30

• A Jewish perspective on business ethics: A glance into the sources and implications for curriculum development
  Benjamin Gidron (COMAS), Rabbi Barry Leff (The Neshamah Center)
  

Coffee Break

11:00

• Debt cancellation as a common Jewish-Christian heritage. Contextual re-lecture of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in the view of current indebtedness and debt cancellation
  Franz Segbers (University of Marburg)
• You made them equal to us! How to read New-Testament parables in context of contemporary ethics
  Wilhelm Guggenberger (University of Innsbruck)

Lunch Break

14.00

• The balance of economics: An Islamic-Theological approach
  Idris Nassery (University of Paderborn)
• Parrhesia: The ethics of truth-telling as an “action which is risky and free”
  Richard Weiskopf (University of Innsbruck)

Coffee Break

16.00

• Concluding Plenary
  

17.30

• End of Workshop
  

In case of requests, please contact Andreas Exenberger (andreas.exenberger@uibk.ac.at).

Today’s globalizing world is dominated by a large and strong business sector that sometimes acts as if it has no restraints. In this world of intensifying economic interactions with ever growing impact potential in the social, political and environmental sphere at local, regional and global scale, ethical and moral fundamentals equally grow in relevance. This is even aggravated by the fact that these fundamentals are not at all regarded as universal by most players in the field, but very dependent on their respective cultural background.

The workshop aims at opening a field for discussion of a specific element of this challenge. It will allow reflective space for understanding and debating the capacity of historical texts and teachings, especially (but not necessarily) religious, for today’s management and business decisions, strategies and practices from the perspective of practical ethics. For that purpose, we invite inputs from a particular perspective based in historical texts or teachings and applied to one or two recent business cases as stimuli for plenary discussions in a broader group. The issues to discuss should especially target the “grey areas” of everyday business activities and may include fairness in trading, truth in advertising, biased consulting practises, management compensation schemes, repelling communication practices or product/service quality, but also deception, subcontracting or whistleblowing, to name just a few examples.

We will allow 20-25 minutes for each input and at least equal time for discussions, to which we will invite about 15 scholars from various backgrounds to participate over the whole day. This will allow to uncover differences and similarities of these various approaches and hence to promote mutual understanding of challenges as well as potential ways to address the issues raised. Consequently, the workshop should initiate a process to develop comparative research and integrated teaching in the area of practical business and economic ethics.