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Make business ethics a cumulative science

Nature Human Behaviour volume 1, Article number: 0027 (2017) Cite this article

Business ethics research is not currently a cumulative science, but it must become one. The benefits to humanity from research that helps firms improve their ethics could be enormous, especially if that research also shows that strong ethics improves the effectiveness of companies.

Imagine a world in which medical researchers did experiments on rats, but never on people. Furthermore, suppose that doctors ignored the rat literature entirely. Instead, they talked to each other and swapped tips, based on their own clinical experience. In such a world medicine would not be the cumulative science that we know today.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jonathan Haidt is at the Stern School of Business, New York University, 44 West Fourth Street, New York, New York 10012, USA.,

    Jonathan Haidt

  2. Linda Trevino is at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, 402 Business Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.,

    Linda Trevino

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  1. Jonathan Haidt
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  2. Linda Trevino
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Correspondence to Jonathan Haidt.

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Haidt, J., Trevino, L. Make business ethics a cumulative science. Nat Hum Behav 1, 0027 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0027

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0027

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