Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL ETHICS JOURNAL, VOL. 26, NOS. 1-4
Laura Dunham
Introduction
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
4 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 5
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
6 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 7
Existing Literature
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 9
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
10 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 11
framework, the paper begins outlining critical issues in the area of entre
preneurial ethics and suggesting some fruitful new areas of inquiry.
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
12 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
and macro (Brenkert, 2002). Fourth, this approach emphasizes what has
been a neglected element of the ethics of entrepreneurship?the role and
responsibility associated with creativity within our economic systems. Fi
nally, this approach allows me to develop a more complex interpretation
of ethics?instead of leading me toward the traditional empirical focus
on the ethics of constraint and weakness of will, an emphasis on creativ
ity allows including a more positive conception of ethics as that which
drives aspirations, virtues, imagination and progress towards richer and
fuller lives.
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 13
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
14 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 15
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
16 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 17
erature emphasizes the role of risk and return in the entrepreneur's evalu
ative process, this account suggests that creative entrepreneurs will look
to a broader range of personal and ethical values when making their own
determination as to the attractiveness of their ventures. Some important
questions, then, are: To what criteria, beyond projected profitability/risk
of loss, do entrepreneurs appeal when making their own assessment of
the attractiveness of their ventures? To what sources of information and
advice do they turn when developing these multiple criteria and weigh
ing their plans against them? How do they assess and make trade-offs
among the multiple values embedded in their offerings? For instance, can
a commitment to certain ethical values help explain why entrepreneurs
persist despite low returns? To what degree are they aware of potential
conflict between the values embedded in their new offerings and those
held by their prospective stakeholders? How does this affect the way they
go about mobilizing support for their ventures?
In addition, this view of the role of ethics has implications for our
research methodologies. As Dees and Starr (1992) have pointed out, re
search on entrepreneurial ethics will require ethicists and social scientists
to operate in tandem, with ethicists contributing the normative analysis
that helps frame and define entrepreneurial ethical dilemmas, that pro
vides a basis for categorizing the responses of entrepreneurs to such di
lemmas, and that determines "the ideals against which practice might be
evaluated" (103).
The second key question raised by an approach to entrepreneurship I
have termed the evaluative challenge. Although central to the concept and
to the empirical investigation of creativity in general, the evaluation of the
appropriateness or value of novel ideas is difficult from at least three per
spectives: when is the evaluation made, how is it made, and by whom?
In entrepreneurial, as in all creative situations, novelty can usually
be recognized immediately but the ultimate assessment of value often
only emerges over time. A novel idea or product can be readily recog
nized since it is noticeably different from others we have experienced.
However, because of this very fact, we are often hampered in our ability to
determine its usefulness. If an entrepreneurial idea is entirely new to our
experience, we have few if any frames of reference with which to evalu
ate it. In fact, many new creative ideas are often rejected as worthless
when first introduced. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was roundly
criticized and his character attacked during his lifetime (Sternberg, 2001).
Similarly, the Impressionists were initially rejected as they sought to in
troduce a new approach to painting and most Impressionist painters never
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
18 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 19
to ignore the role of the individual moral agency of the entrepreneur and
their stakeholders. At the most basic level, such reliance upon the market
assumes that if a product can be made, it should be made; that if a product
can be purchased, it should be purchased; and that if a product provides
value for an individual consumer, it must then contribute towards a greater
value for society as a whole. Such an approach ignores the plurality of
values embedded in any new economic artifact and overlooks the entre
preneur's responsibility to ask, "Is this a useful or appropriate contribu
tion? Is it a venture or product with which I want to be associated? Is this
a good venture?"
These issues suggest some new perspectives on the entrepreneurial
process. If, as suggested here, entrepreneurship is an inherently ethical
process involving the challenging of existing values and beliefs, and one
that requires entrepreneurs to overcome the evaluative challenge if their
offerings are to receive acceptance in the market, we would expect en
trepreneurs who are successful in persuading others of the value of the
visions to use the language of ethics and values, rather than just risk and
payoffs. We would expect successful entrepreneurs to rely more heavily
upon the of use value-laden stories (e.g., Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001),
metaphors (Hill and Levenhagen, 1995) and appeals to beliefs when re
cruiting initial stakeholders than upon a heavy emphasis on negotiation of
contractual relationships. Further, if successful entrepreneurial action is
ultimately about both novelty and value, we would expect entrepreneurs
who focus on novelty alone to have less long-term success. (Thus entre
preneurial ventures built on "pet rocks" and the like will have noticeably
shorter lives than those built on deeper sources of value.)
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
20 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 21
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
22 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 23
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
24 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 25
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
26 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 27
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
28 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 29
Implications
This paper offers a framework that begins the process of identifying and
organizing the range of ethical issues and topics that arise in conjunction
with "creative market action" of pioneering entrepreneurs. I have sug
gested that the essential nature of creative market action, focused as it is
on "valuable novelty," is shaped by a set of antecedents and marked by
a set of consequences that differentiate it from managerial action. This
in turn leads to the rise of distinctive ethical issues and implications that
require the specialized focus of scholars.
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
3 0 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 31
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
32 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 33
Notes
References
Aldrich, H. and C. M. Fiol. 1994. "Fools Rush In? The Institutional Con
text of Industry Creation." Academy of Management Review, 18:
645-670.
Amabile, T. M. 1996. Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
Inc.
Aristotle. 1998. The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross. Oxford,UK:
Oxford University Press.
Bagozzi, R. P., and C. Fornell. 1982. "Theoretical Concepts, Measure
ment, and Meaning." In A Second Generation of Multivariate Analy
sis, ed. C. Fornell, vol. 2, 24-38. New York: Praeger.
Baltes, P. B., and J. Smith. 1990. "Towards a Psychology of Wisdom and
Its Ontogenesis." In Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins, and Development,
ed. R. J. Sternberg, pp. 87-120. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni
versity Press.
Baron, R. 1998. "Cognitive Mechanisms in Entrepreneurship: Why and
When Entrepreneurs Think Differently than Other People." Journal
of Business Venturing, 13,275-294.
Bhide, A. V. 2000. The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Bhide, A. and H. Stevenson. 1990. "Why Be Honest When Honesty
Doesn't Pay?" Harvard Business Review, 68 (Sept/Oct): 121-130.
Brenkert, George. 2002. "Entrepreneurship, Ethics and the Good Soci
ety." Business Ethics Quarterly: The Ruffin Series, Special Issue No.
3, 2002, 5-43.
Bucar, . 2001. "Ethics of Business Managers vs. Entrepreneurs." Jour
nal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 6: 59-83.
Busenitz, L. W., and J. B. Barney. 1997. "Differences between Entrepre
neurs and Managers in Large Organizations: Biases and Heuristics
in Strategic Decision-making." Journal of Business Venturing, 12:
9-30.
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
34 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 35
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
36 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 37
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
38 Business and Professional Ethics Journal
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Ethical Dimensions of Creative Market Action 39
This content downloaded from 202.1.168.144 on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 00:12:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms