The contradictions in rewarding business ethics: The Pro-Ethics case

Abstract How do discourses and practices of business ethics awards align, considering the plurality of ethical values and principles? To answer this question, we critically analyze the Brazilian empirical case “Pro-Ethics.” Pro-Ethics, a joint initiative led by the Brazilian Office of the Comptroller General (CGU) and Ethos Institute, is a symbolic action that promotes recognition of firms committed to preventing and combating corruption and that strive to make the corporate environment more integral, ethical, and transparent. We performed textual analysis through Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. As a result, we identified that the national integrity and business ethics system was imported from big global economic nations without considering the local reality and the cultural and social particularities that permeate trust relationships in Brazil. We also identified a progressive emptying of ethical and moral meanings in human relations in the capitalist context and the substitution of its content to cost-benefit relationships. Our analysis brings two main contributions. First, it adds to the discussion on business ethics awards, a field that academia has not explored in Brazil and is underdeveloped worldwide, with very few papers focusing on this subject. Secondly, it questions business ethics management practices, demonstrating the instrumental nature of the subject.