Ingo Pies

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg | MLU · Department of Economics, Chair of Economic Ethics

The world society is in urgent need for new ecological problem solutions on a global scale. However, the current system to incentivize invention and innovation for green technologies is only limitedly able to provide effective solutions—particularly in the “global south”. Since patents that exert distortionary effects remain the dominant mechanisms...

External shocks (e.g., due to a pandemic) may lead to price jumps in the short term. Rather than being read as a signal of increased scarcity, the resulting “price gouging” is often ascribed to sellers’ selfish exploitation of the crisis. In our experimental study, we investigate the drivers of fairness perceptions regarding voluntary transactions...

Recent scholarship has advocated a conceptual investigation of rebound effect theory in the circular economy (CE) context. While the available body of knowledge on a circular economy rebound (CER) is rather scant, this forum article proposes a conceptual view of existing CER approaches. Our analysis reveals that the CER literature has largely bypas...

Purpose Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case, managers may need to make trade-offs between these interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of managerial decision-making about these trade-offs....

The idea of a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) has aroused fervent discussion recently. It is proposed as an effective tool to address the competitiveness loss and carbon leakage induced by unilateral carbon policies. Yet on the brink of this policy being rolled out, its ethical justification seems insufficiently clarified. CBAM implementa...

This forum article contributes to the prospering debate in the circular economy (CE) community discussing whether—and to what extent—the CE is reconcilable with economic growth. Within this discourse about a functional CE, there exist two contesting perspectives. One argues in favor of pro‐growth circularity, the other in favor of post‐growth circu...

The renaissance of Aristotelian virtue ethics has produced an extensive philosophical literature that criticizes markets for a lack of virtues. Drawing on Michael Sandel’s virtue-ethical critique of price gouging during natural disasters, we (1) identify and clarify serious misunderstandings in recurring price-gouging debates between virtue-ethical...

Implementing the circular economy (CE) requires novel forms of stakeholder collaboration. While the contemporary literature on stakeholder theory is commonly characterized as “pro‐business‐oriented,” it remains ambiguous on how precisely stakeholder collaborations may pave the way for a systemic CE transition. By applying a qualitative‐empirical re...

This article introduces a conceptual framework for climate governance. It provides an insight into how a system of governance can cope with the uncertainty and pluralism that are prevalent in climate governance. In our framework, we combine polycentric climate governance, procedural climate justice and directed technical change policy. We show that...

This paper develops an ordonomic approach to the governance of sustainable business model innovation (SBMI). We clarify the distinctive roles of optimization and governance for the management of sustainable value networks and develop a sustainability cube as a new management tool for the governance of SBMI. Our cube helps management to identify and...

Kidney markets are prohibited in principle because they are assumed to undermine the seller's dignity. Considering the trade-off between saving more lives by introducing regulated kidney markets and preserving the seller's dignity, we argue that it is advisable to demand that citizens restrain their own moral judgements and not interfere with the j...

This article reconstructs from an ordonomic perspective (a) which obstacles stand in the way of a reasonable interpretation of John Stuart Mill, (b) what his general approach is, (c) how his utilitarian ethics deals with different categories of justice, (d) how he as an economist and philosopher takes a position on the ideals of justice favored by...

This article shows how the ordonomic research program constructively criticizes moral prejudices, in particular intentionalistic and moralistic fallacies, and thus – as ethics – makes constructive contributions to counter discourse failures with the help of superior arguments.

This article contains the text for a keynote address, delivered as a video presentation, for the IAMO Forum 2020. It discusses whether our moral sentiments help or impede finding reasonable strategies to cope with the Corona crisis. The text formulates hypotheses about the functionality and dysfunctionality of both individual and collective moralit...

This article takes the perspective of the ordonomic research program on economic ethics. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism – and of the critique of capitalism. The main argument is that many people are unclear about the functioning of a competitive market economy and that this is precisely why many negative moral judgments abo...

In 1972, the book "The Limits to Growth" was published as a report to the Club of Rome. This publication has become extraordinarily influential. It has provided public thought about the economy and the environment with a growth-critical paradigm that is still wide-spread today and, as a mental model, predisposes the political discourse of our (worl...

This essay sums up 30 years of theory work on economic ethics and presents in particular the Ordonomic research program.

This essay sums up 30 years of business ethics theory work and presents in particular the Ordonomic research program.

Corruption is a serious and complex challenge for modern societies. Fighting and pre-venting corruption thus requires constructive learning processes. In this paper, we sys-tematically integrate a market ethics perspective with a business ethics perspective con-stitutive for the study of “ordonomics”. In doing so, we argue that, first, companies ha...

Assume a pandemic in which, despite all efforts of vaccine persuasion, too many people are hesitant toward vaccination for a laissez-faire regime to reach herd immunity on a strictly voluntary basis. Then, basically four policy options are available—(a) moral appeals, (b) legal obligation, (c) monetary fines, and (d) monetary rewards. In this artic...

Can private companies legitimately regulate sharing markets, and if yes, how? Whereas scholars have either criticized sharing platforms for expanding into private and public arenas or welcomed them to counterbalance encroaching government regulations, studies document their unbridled popularity. On the basis of a special version of social contracts...

For many industries, the transition towards a circular economy (CE) is rather challenging because firms need to collaborate with actors within and beyond immediate industry boundaries. Scholars and practitioners expect synergies for circular supply chain management (CSCM) by understanding the role of governance both from a CE perspective and a sust...

The Covid-19 pandemic reveals a new phenomenon, unaddressed by the existing literature on “price gouging” in times of emergency. While merchants – getting large(r) remuneration for providing desperately needed goods – evoke public moral outrage for assumed “price gouging”, employees – getting large(r) remuneration for providing desperately needed s...

Our article contributes to the recurring debate on whether and how firms in competitive markets should pursue objectives other than purely financial ones. Two competing approaches dominate this debate: one favors profit maximization as a single objective; the other favors multiple, partly social objectives. This debate has been going on for decades...

Many public debates about the societal significance and impact of agriculture are usefully framed by Paul Thompson's distinction between the "agrarian" and the "industrial vision." The key argument of the present paper is that the ongoing debate between these visions goes beyond academic philosophy and has direct effects on the political economy of...

Der von Ulrike Knobloch vorgelegte Text meldet theoretische Ambitionen an: Er formuliert eine Kritik an John Rawls (ca. 1 + 3 Seiten), eine Kritik an der Ökonomik im Allgemeinen und an Karl Homanns ökonomischer Ethik im Besonderen (ca. 2 Seiten) sowie eine Einführung in die Vorstellungswelt Peter Ulrichs (ca. 8 Seiten), um schließlich in eine kriti...

Dieses Korreferat konzentriert sich ausschließlich auf konstruktive Kritik. Diese wird in vier Schritten entwickelt. Erstens skizzieren wir den Ansatz einer ökonomischen Theorie der Moral. Zweitens zeigen wir, dass man aus diesem Ansatz heraus nicht nur eine leistungsfähige Unternehmensethik, sondern auch – allgemeiner – eine leistungsfähige Organi...

In der Festschrift zu seinem 65. Geburtstag äußert Karl Homann eine gewisse Unzufriedenheit über die weitgehend verständnislos betriebene Rezeption seiner Arbeiten (vgl. Pies et al. 2008: 15; 18ff.). Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es aus Sicht der ökonomischen Ethik nicht nur begrüßenswert, sondern geradezu verdienstvoll, dass Aßländer und Nutzinger (2...

The sharing economy is a hotbed of hybridity and sustainability owing to the reduction in transactions costs that create information, trust, and trade. However, the hybridization also challenges the sustainability of sharing business models, a tension often criticized but rarely addressed. This paper identifies and solves three challenges of hybrid...

Drawing on Luhmannian social systems theory, this article revisits the single- versus multiple-objective debate on the theory of the firm. Firms are conceptualized as complexity reducing systems structurally coupled with potentially risky environments, and profit maximization is considered as a complexity reduction strategy for making sense of thes...

Historically, crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted politicians to break up dead-locked structures and implement far-reaching reforms. Path dependencies can be interrupted in times of crisis. This volume examines the social impact of the current pandemic as well as both the long-term challenges it poses and the potential it offers from...

This article aims at introducing the sociology of morals by Donald Black to a broader German-speaking public. The reconstruction draws on graphical visualizations that help to follow the basic arguments and to understand the systematicity of Black’s line of thought. Furthermore, Black’s approach is illustrated by highlighting several propositions h...

Dieser Aufsatz zeichnet aus einer ordonomischen Perspektive nach, wie das Revival der Tugendethik seit den späten 1950er-Jahren eine philosophische Literatur tugendethischer Marktkritik hervorgebracht hat, die von Ökonomen argumentativ zurückgewiesen und in Form einer Tugendethik des Marktes konstruktiv überboten worden ist. Besonders betont wird,...

Purpose Public debates on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are strongly influenced by the nongovernmental organization (NGO)-led advocacy, most of which is harshly critical of genetic engineering. This advocacy has resulted in discourse failures marked by the disregard for the scientific consensus on the risks and benefits of GMOs....

Purpose: Change management projects typically fail because they meet employee resistance created by emotional sensemaking processes. This paper aims to present an in-depth explanation for these failures and how change managers could avoid them. Design/methodology/approach: This study presents an argument in the following three steps: it begins...

Karl Marx wurde vor 200 Jahren geboren. Viele Aspekte seiner Kapitalismusanalyse haben einen Kern, der auch heute noch aktuell sein könnte: Globalisierung und „Ausbeutung“, Widerspruch zwischen Kapital und Arbeit, ungleiche Einkommensverteilung, Krisenhaftigkeit des Kapitalismus und tendenzieller Fall der Profitrate. Marx war Philosoph und Gesellsc...

Dieser Aufsatz zeichnet aus einer ordonomischen Perspektive nach, wie das Revival der Tugendethik seit den späten 1950er-Jahren eine philosophische Literatur tugendethischer Marktkritik hervorgebracht hat, die von Ökonomen argumentativ zurückgewiesen und in Form einer Tugendethik des Marktes konstruktiv überboten worden ist. Besonders betont wird,...

Die Ankündigung des Siemens-Konzerns, trotz insgesamt guter Gewinnlage, Arbeitsplätze in strukturschwachen Regionen Ostdeutschlands abzubauen, wurde quer durch das politische Parteienspektrum von namhaften Politikern skandalisiert. Widerspruch zum öffentlich dominierenden Wahrnehmungs muster wird hier wirtschaftsethisch reflektiert. Dazu zwei These...

In einem grundlegenden Aufsatz, der hier in deutscher Übersetzung zusammen mit dem englischen Original abgedruckt wird, leisten Bruni und Sugden einen innovativen Beitrag zur interdisziplinären Verständigung zwischen Philosophie und Ökonomik. Ausgangspunkt ist der Befund, dass tugendethische Ansätze oft ausgesprochen marktkritisch sind, weil sie du...

In einem grundlegenden Aufsatz, der hier in deutscher Übersetzung zusammen mit dem englischen Original abgedruckt wird, leisten Bruni und Sugden einen innovativen Beitrag zur interdisziplinären Verständigung zwischen Philosophie und Ökonomik. Ausgangspunkt ist der Befund, dass tugendethische Ansätze oft ausgesprochen marktkritisch sind, weil sie du...

Taking account of the widest possible range of consequences of one’s action takes center stage in John Dewey’s pragmatist ethics which likewise acknowledges that the ability to do so depends on the individual moral character. In contrast, Luhmann’s theory of complexity-reducing systems underscores the difficulties that social systems experience in...

We analyse the impact of index investment on four grain futures markets by applying several vector auto-regression models, generalised impulse response functions (GIRF), and a structural break analysis. We also test for effects of long-short index funds, an aspect widely ignored so far. Index funds have some price-disturbing effects. These are, how...

John Maurice Clark is an early classic of the concept of “ordo” responsibility. He saw very clearly that the self-interest of the business sector is ill-served if it resists any kind of state regulation. Faced with negative externalities (and even systems failures like bank panics), Clark strongly argued in favor of such regulation and called upon...

The literature on nonprofit management has embraced the concept of “accountability” to target urgent challenges related to NGO probity and integrity, and there have been attempts in the literature to use rational-choice-based governance approaches to solve them. Although the existing principal–agent frameworks provide important insights, they are l...

The paper reconstructs Niklas Luhmann’s diagnosis of the dysfunctional character of moral communication in the modern society by emphasizing the emergent character of today’s moral problems. In the systems-theoretic literature, emergence means the irreducibility of the properties of the whole to the characteristics of its parts. Two arguments have...

Wichtige Köpfe der Gesellschaftstheorie im Überblick Ingo Pies versammelt in diesem Buch 20 Texte, die jeweils das Denken eines modernen Gesellschaftstheoretikers vorstellen. Er bietet eine Einführung in das Gesamtwerk des Denkers sowie eine systematische und historische Einordnung. Das Werk eignet sich für Forschung und Lehre: als Inspiration für...

Within academic research, more and more scholars reveal the ambivalence of NGOs—the sometimes constructive, sometimes destructive role they play in solving societal problems. In this paper, we present a discourse analysis that illustrates how NGOs’ campaigning may undermine their reputation and advocacy function. We conclude that such discourse fai...

The ordonomic approach to order ethics contains four elements: (a) a diagnosis of modernity, which identifies the core problems and directs the research strategy to solving them; (b) a rational-choice analysis of social dilemmas, i.e., positive theorizing which informs about the un-intended consequences of intentional inter-action; (c) the idea of...

This article shows how taking a constitutional economics perspective can clarify the idea of responsibility. Applying constitutional economics, the authors distinguish between within-game (or sub-constitutional) responsibility when playing a game and context-of-game (or constitutional) responsibility for developing the conditions under which a game...

Zum ersten Mal in der Menschheitsgeschichte zeichnet sich im 21. Jahrhundert die Möglichkeit ab, Hunger und Armut als historische Geißeln der Menschheit im weltweiten Maßstab zu besiegen. Bei realistischer Betrachtung gibt es einerseits Grund zur Hoffnung, bis zum Jahr 2050 globale Ernährungssicherheit herstellen zu können. Andererseits besteht abe...

The public discourse on the acceptability of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is not only controversial, but also infused with highly emotional and moralizing rhetoric. Although the assessment of risks and benefits of GMOs must be a scientific exercise, many debates on this issue seem to remain impervious to scientific evidence. In many cases,...

This paper aims to contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion between systems theory and institutional economics which is currently under way in several academic debates. We argue that explaining the emergent character of social dilemma situations in modern societies can be well informed by recent work in institutional economics, in particular...

In einem grundlegenden Aufsatz, der hier in deutscher Übersetzung zusammen mit dem englischen Original abgedruckt wird, vertreten Clark und Lee die These, dass die Marktwirtschaft häufig zu Unrecht auf moralische Vorbehalte stößt. Sie identifizieren eine Verzerrung ethischer Diskurse: Man werde einer Marktwirtschaft nicht gerecht, wenn man an sie n...

The reply of Ingo Pies explains the background of the public quarrel over agricultural speculation and criticises three points which may hinder a productive debate. Christian Conrad responds that due to problems of methodology, investigations using econometrics can neither prove nor disprove any influence of speculation on prices, and he warns agai...

Was Unternehmen sind und tun, ist relativ klar. Unternehmen sind korporative Akteure, die sich wirtschaftlich betätigen. In der Marktwirtschaft sind Unternehmen typischerweise so konstitu(tionalis)iert, dass sie eine langfristige Vermögenswertsteigerung – vulgo: Gewinnmaximierung – betreiben. Unternehmen organisieren Wertschöpfung, indem sie mit di...

Long-only index funds have been suspected of being responsible for price increases on agricultural futures markets, particularly those for grain. Utilizing partial equilibrium concepts, we analyze the market impacts of long-only index funds. Our Analysis reveals that they stabilize the futures market. The market entry of long-only index funds lower...

The present paper applies the logic of John Kenneth Gailbraith's institutional economics analysis of corporate power to inquiring into the societal role of the nonprofit sector. Building on Galbraith's insight that corporations cause subtle but pervasive societal imbalances, the paper locates the role of nonprofit organizations in compensating for...

The notion of “democracy” has become a much-debated concept in scholarship on business ethics, management, and organization studies. The strategy of this paper is to distinguish between a principle of organization that fosters partici- pation (type I democracy) and a principle of legitimation that draws on consent (type II democracy). Based on this...

This is a comment on the article by West et al. (2014) on “Leverage points for improving global food security and the environment”. The authors claim that the leverage points they have identified “offer the best opportunities to improve both global food security and environmental sustainability” (p. 325). However, we criticize that (1) their lis...

Index fundsʼ financial speculation with agricultural commodities: Functioning. Effects. For quite some time long-only index funds have been suspected of being responsible for price increases in agricultural futures mar-kets. This suspicion has prompted demands to drastically limit long-only index fundsʼ scope of activity. Such demands and their und...

This paper addresses a fundamental problem in corporate sustainability: How can corporations transform trade-offs through win–win-oriented governance strategies aimed at creating value? Drawing on new strands of research in business ethics, we employ an ‘ordonomic’ perspective and proceed in four steps. First, we sketch how sustainability semantics...

As a reply to our critics, we show that Bozorgmehr et al. (2013) have (a) misunderstood, (b) misread, and (c) misinterpreted the literature review by Will et al. (2012).

In the last decades, NGOs have become an important participant in the work of political organizations (e.g., national authorities, the EU or the UN). This development brings many opportunities and also some challenges, including discourse failure which is one of the topics discussed in this paper. We present a case study that illustrates the interd...

Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag liefert für die aktuelle wissenschaftliche und politische Regulierungsdebatte der Kapitalmärkte drei Argumente: (1) Der Beitrag präsentiert zuerst einen konzeptionellen Ansatz, der zwischen sozial erwünschten und sozial schädlichen Folgen des Insiderhandels differenziert. Insiderhandel führt zu gesellschaftlich unerwü...