نوآوری، شکستن قانون و اخلاق کارآفرینی

This article examines a feature of the ethics of entrepreneurship that is infrequently directly discussed, viz., rule breaking. Entrepreneurs are widely said to engage in rule breaking. Many examples of this appear in popular and academic literature. But how may this be integrated into an account of the ethics of entrepreneurship? One response would be that when entrepreneurs break legal and moral rules then what they do is wrong and ought to be condemned. There is a great deal to be said for this rule model of entrepreneurial ethics. However, this view is also mistaken. Instead, this article defends a virtue-based account of the ethics of entrepreneurship in which certain instances of rule breaking, even if morally wrong, are nevertheless ethically acceptable and part of the creative destruction that entrepreneurs bring not only to the economy but also to morality.

The upshot for an ethics of entrepreneurship is that our recognition of the preceding forms of behavior expands and deepens our views of the complexity of an entrepreneurial ethics. There is not a single rule or principle that gives unique answers to each situation they face. The appeal to various standard utilitarian or deontological theories of morality is of little help in such circumstances. Instead, entrepreneurs face situations in which there are plural norms, values, and virtues that may unresolvably conflict (e.g., dirty hands). Thus, the appeal for moral guidance in the form of a set of rules that will spell out the unique right or wrong thing to do is misdirected. No such guidance will, or can be, forthcoming (at least that can be justified). Sometimes entrepreneurs break moral rules and their actions should be condemned. They are morally wrong. Other times, in the kinds of cases I have illustrated, they may break moral rules and, since these actions are derivative from the kinds of virtues and actions that members of an entrepreneurial good life would engage in, they may be permitted or even praised. However, in these situations, given the nature of my argument, the demand for a moral justification of entrepreneurial rule breaking actions cannot be provided. The ethical questions entrepreneurs face cannot be viewed in a static context. The decisions or judgments they must make may alter the context so that what was wrong becomes right, what was false becomes true, and what was forbidden becomes forgiven. In acknowledged competitive situations (commercial or political), some forms of deception are permitted, though not required. The strict truth may not be obligatory. Even some forms of tricksterism are permitted. In this setting, the innovation and creative destruction associated with entrepreneurialism should be viewed as applying not only to products and services, but also to morality and the good life. Entrepreneurs are change agents in the former, as well as in the latter areas. Accordingly, traditional moral theory is analogous to neo-classical economic theory in not creating a space for moral change. The disruption or creative destruction that entrepreneurs introduce applies both to economics and to morality. The implication is that some version of virtue theory must be part of an account of an ethics of entrepreneurship. In this theory success plays an important role, as what the entrepreneur can bring off. This does not mean, to repeat, that there is a set of rules/principles that entrepreneurs can be taught or learn that will instruct them on what to do in the situations they will meet. Nor does this imply that entrepreneurs need only consider egoistic or utilitarian consequences. Instead, their decisions should be those that derive from the virtues compatible with the kind of good life we wish to instill. Among the reasons I have noted in the preceding sections that condition and guide entrepreneurial decision making are the fact that the result of breaking the rules does not seriously harm other people, that it helps fulfill one's life projects, that others knowledgeably participate in situations where the rule breaking may go against them, and that such actions accord with similar actions of entrepreneurial role models. These reasons, I suggest, flow out of the virtues an entrepreneur would have as a member of a flourishing society in which entrepreneurship (and innovation) was esteemed. There are four additional features of this complexity. First, the rule-breaking aspect of entrepreneurship is not something that characterizes each and every entrepreneurial act. Instead, this occurs in exceptional situations. But as such it indicates the limits of the everyday behaviors of entrepreneurs. The virtues by which entrepreneurs (and the rest of us) operate give rise to rules (moral, conventional, and legal) by which people should regularly act (cf. Bhide and Stevenson). For entrepreneurs to know what to do, in most cases, it would be to appeal to such virtues and their rules. However, their innovative actions arise when these rules become ossified (Etzioni), are poorly fitted to new situations, block significant beneficial projects, etc. This paper has focused on this rule-breaking aspect that is crucial to entrepreneurship, rather than the guidelines entrepreneurs might (and should) follow in their daily activities. Second, since some people are much more rule-bound than others, there are clearly limits to the extent to which those individuals can engage in entrepreneurship under the present description of “rule breaking.” Educators, organizational leaders, and societal leaders face a considerable challenge in encouraging people to follow through on their creative or innovative ideas. To do this is to build a base of confidence in each person that they can succeed. As others have noted, an important aspect of this is eliminating various overwhelming implications of failure. Some of these are of a moral nature, i.e. one is not morally disreputable if one has tried and failed to develop some project. Just as others have spoken about the extent to which people are cognitively bounded when it comes to morality, the fact that people are also motivationally and morally bounded affects the nature and extent of the entrepreneurial roles they may play. Third, an extremely important question generated by the preceding discussion concerns how one creates an organization in which people are encouraged to be entrepreneurial, together with its notions of innovation and rule breaking, while avoiding, at the same time, encouraging people to act in ways that run afoul of Sarbanes–Oxley and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, as well as the company's own set of values. There is, obviously, another very great tension here between entrepreneurship and organizational legal liability. If an organization wants to avoid increased penalties under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, it must be extremely clear and consistent on what are its rules, what are their levels of priority, as well as when forgiveness or clemency will never be forthcoming. In short, the rule-breaking aspect of entrepreneurship must will be hemmed in and redirected to areas less threatening to the legal liability of the organization. To encourage the entrepreneurial aspect of the organization will be to permit, encourage, and foster challenges to current mindsets, rules, and procedures. One result will be that the attempt to draw boundaries around this questioning will itself be challenged. Such an organization must have a higher tolerance for chaos than rule-bound bureaucracies. Fourth, the present view means that teaching business ethics and the ethics of entrepreneurship are rendered more, not less, difficult. Along these lines, I can only second the following comments that Badaracco and Webb have made on this topic: “the task of teaching business ethics will become more difficult… because teachers will have to tread a fine line between being usefully realistic, on the one hand, and further encouraging cynicism, pessimism, and the sleazy sorts of behavior that they hope young managers and organizations will avoid” (Badaracco and Webb, 1995: 25). In conclusion, this paper has focused on one aspect of the ethics of entrepreneurship, viz, that aspect that deals with innovation and some forms of the rule breaking it involves. Though this aspect of entrepreneurship is frequently mentioned, it is rarely focused on, at least by ethicists, since the most straightforward response would seem to be, in moral contexts, to dismiss it as immoral. On the contrary, I have argued, focusing on this attribute of entrepreneurship opens up a more complex and valuable view of the ethical challenges entrepreneurs are faced with and of our own view of morality.20