Ethics Newsline®

The Ethical Imperative: Why Moral Leadership is Good Business by John Dalla Costa Perseus Books Reading, Massachusetts, 1998 ISBN: 0-7382-0130-8 Book review by Earl H. Hess

Drawing from what this reviewer sees as a unique combination of skills and perspectives in the areas of economics, business leadership, theology, and the social sciences, John Dalla Costa laments a global economic system that seems focused on short-term, bottom-line profitability with disregard for the long-term damage being imposed on the quality of human life.

This book is no easy read. Rather than dealing in only gut feeling and anecdotal evidence, Dalla Costa documents his positions very thoroughly. He does not hesitate to deal with specific situations in which the failure of companies to build a culture that supported moral as well as financial integrity led to gross ethical misconduct. Conversely, he also cites those whose “ethical maturity” parallels their economic savvy.

In an early chapter, Dalla Costa documents the cost to our global economy of fraudulent and unethical practices, putting dollar amounts onto such areas as healthcare fraud, fines and damages to companies because of mistreatment of employees, and violations of environmental regulations. The sum total is indeed staggering.

He proceeds to document the urgency of a global ethic integrated into our global economy, an ethic built around simple core values such as honesty, dignity, fairness, justice, and honoring the environment, and then describes the benefits not just to the business but to all of society.

In the later chapters of The Ethical Imperative, his emphasis is on the “how to” of implementing ethics. He uses the term “Strat-Ethic” to emphasize the importance of integrating ethical elements (the company’s core values and culture) into its strategic plan, and identifies key roles of governing boards and CEOs in setting the tone for a company’s commitment to high ethical standards and practice.

The reviewer, having a keen interest in the role that religion can play in creating an ethical society, finds Dalla Costa’s perspective extremely enlightening. He brings together the basic ethical teachings of the world’s great religions and finds them strikingly consistent, as exemplified by a statement from the Parliament of World Religions in 1995. Further, he insists that religion plays a key role in providing the moral undergirding of a global ethic, but decries the divisiveness inflicted on us by narrow sectarianism.

As mentioned earlier, this book is not an easy read, but it will prove immensely worthwhile to those of usespecially in the business worldwho long for a way of integrating our lives to include both its personal and business dimensions.