Introduction

Organizations promote all sorts of activities. Almost every activity undertaken in the world today is reliant in some way or another on an organization. The majority of papers in this volume consider the ethical aspects of the activities undertaken by organizations and their impact on society. The last two papers in the collection are concerned with the impact of individuals, and recall an earlier volume (2013) in which moral saints and moral exemplars was the theme.

Organizations make contributions to society through the provision of goods and services. They are necessary to bring about tasks which could never be achieved by an individual acting alone. While that may be sufficient to justify the existence of organizations, it is not enough to ensure that organizations make an ethical contribution, or contribute to the ethical development of society. Organizations can make an ethical contribution and can be a positive force for good in the world, or they can contribute to less fortunate outcomes such as environmental pollution and the Global Financial Crisis. In this collection, the contributors explore two features of that contribution: integrity (or the lack of it) and the role of professions, and provide examples from finance, the military, social enterprise, and a range of professions.