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On December 14, 2007 the Stuttgart Media University [HdM], the Institute for Business Intelligence, the International Controller Association, INDABA Corporate Consulting, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies and Society [ICT&S] of the University of Salzburg organized a round table on Business Intelligence meets Moral Intelligence. Participants from the academia, some of them experts in business ethics, as well as economists and business intelligence specialists met at Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart.
Stefan Blachfellner, CEO and owner of INDABA, faciltated the round table and a knowledge cafe which produced the seeds for this emerging open knowledge project called "Change the Game Initative". The following note summarizes the shared results of the first round table in Stuttgart: Searching for a link between moral theory and business intelligence practices by Rafael Capurro and Yvonne Thorhauer In his opening address Peter Lehmann [HdM] defined business intelligence in terms of a company’s intelligence agency that includes strategies, processes and technologies with the purpose of getting relevant information about its competitors including social as well as ethical aspects. Some participants pointed to the risks of a strong belief in data that might negatively influence the communication between the decision makers and the company’s staff. One of them urged: "We complicated the world with operating figures and financial ratios." The mere aggregation of data becomes in many cases a surrogate for a sound consideration including the moral values at stage. Some Controller perceive themselves no longer as the company’s "steersmen" but rather as mere "functional agents".
For many participants moral intelligence is not just concerned with the application of moral norms for business objectives but with the supervision of corporate behavior with regard to the handling of internal and external knowledge as well as with the interface to other systems of society, especially the media. First and foremost it is the mass media who observe a company’s handling of knowledge processes from the perspective of societal explicit or implicit norms. Moral intelligence as understood in this meeting deals with the methodical ethical reflection of the company’s behavioural rules in the field of business intelligence. Some participants underlined that this reflection should include a dialogue with economy leaders. The ethical perspective means a shift from utility-based consumer values to holistic citizen values.
The link between business und moral intelligence – though of increasing economical, political and social importance – lacks a thorough methodological analysis so far. The meeting was a first approach from practitioners, especially controller, on the one hand and academic researchers on the other hand. There is a gap between the lived rules and the company’s explicit norms that should be further explored by a sound ethical reflection. The terms ethics and morality are often used synonymously in everyday speech bringing confusion between a field of research [ethics] and its object [morality], no less relevant than the one between economics and the economy.
The participants of the Stuttgart round table agreed that it is not easy to question the economic logic especially in the case of large corporations. The compulsion to satisfy the shareholder value at the management level is carried forward throughout the whole company hierarchy by given objectives and performance-based salaries. Meanwhile, a practical economy that strives to meet ethical demands needs managers who not only behave according to moral standards but who are also able to critically reflect on their company’s moral performance. The practitioners did not think that codes of conduct are particularly useful in this regard. Some even named them "organised irresponsibility" since they seem to excuse the individual and the company from ethical deliberation. The participants also perceived the link between business and moral intelligence not only with regard to the moral behaviour of managers but also as something that concerns the corporate culture itself.
Moral intelligence searching for a link to business intelligence has to scrutinize also the content as well as the methodology of value judgements in this field by or in the media. This should lead to a more objective and balanced view of the frictions that become apparent in talk-shows, newspapers and Internet forums. Due to new forms of social interaction such as online communities or blogs the civil society "catches up". As far as the Internet has weakened the monopoly of the mass media citizens have now more possibilities for active participation in social and political matters than ever. But these forms of social interaction give rise to new ethical questions in the field of business intelligence such as new forms of corporate espionage, a higher vulnerability of business secrets, the balance between corporate privacy and publicity as well as the relation to one’s own privacy within social Internet portals.
The project to link academically and practically business and moral intelligence was discussed during the kick-off round table in Stuttgart. The participants agreed that this is a highly relevant matter not only for the economy and its agents but for economics and its theoretical research as well. Accordingly, the experts agreed upon several forthcoming projects and events, among them a symposium at Stuttgart Media University in December 2008 organized by Peter Lehmann und Rafael Capurro. Furthermore, the International Review of Information Ethics [IRIE] will deal with this matter in a special issue to be published by January 2009. An Internet portal will be created. |
