Question: The discipline of business ethics comes under attack from a number of directions. The business practitioner may view its analytical methods as time-consuming and its prescriptions as soft and impractical. In particular, the recommendation to engage in dialogue with stakeholders is seen as detracting from the right to manage. Some academics and consultants often seem to prefer more ‘objective' methods of analysis and modelling, for example, as seen in texts on Business Strategy. For instance, it is currently fashionable to use concepts of power, sustainable competitive advantage and value appropriation in modelling competitive action, all notions with little linkage to ethical theory. Often ethics only comes into the picture when discussing strategy implementation, when it appears little more than Public Relations! Other radical critics of the business world view business ethics as tainted by its accommodation to a market philosophy and hence not capable of taking an independent and critical line. What use is business ethics?