Ethics Research in Business Communication: The State of the Art

Abstract

This paper surveys treatments of business communication ethics in Association for Business Communication (ABC) Publications for the last 30 years. Pedagogical papers reveal an almost unanimous opinion that business communication is inherently a moral subject and that ethics has a place in the classroom. Consensus on how to teach or to evaluate moral behavior has not, however, been achieved. Nonpedagogical papers have usually been conceptual or descriptive, and have rarely been part of program matic research. Consequently a unified body of knowledge that could guide future re search or provide a basis for moral instruction does not exist. Future research in both pedagogical and nonpedagogical areas is recommended.

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