Redefining the scholarship of business ethics: An editorial

Abstract

Traditionally, the term "scholarship" has been narrowly defined as discovery-based research. Teaching in higher education, by contrast, is perceived as an intellectually inferior activity. However, the teaching-research divide is a crude distinction which fails to capture the richness of scholarly endeavour in all disciplines. Drawing on Boyer's four forms of scholarship, it is argued that academic work in business ethics needs to be reconceptualised in terms which honour and value all contributions. This special issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, arising from an international conference on the teaching of business ethics, is illustrative of the scholarship of discovery, integration, application and teaching.