The academic world of business ethics seems at last to be waking up to the challenges posed by major shifts and currents in the global business environment. Once the discipline seemed to be obsessed with long-dead philosophers, and typically engaged in an unending battle to 'prove' that certain business practices were either right or wrong according to whatever theory was the flavour of the day. There now appears to be a new generation of business ethics research, writing and teaching that has embraced a much broader agenda - one that corresponds more closely with the themes covered in these Annual Reviews.

This new generation was illustrated by a number of developments during 2003. In Budapest, as the end of the summer, the main association for business ethics scholars in Europe, the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN), held its conference. 32 This was titled "Building Ethical Institutions for Business" and allowed "the participants to reflect and debate on the role of institutions in the transformation of business toward a more human and ethical form." Not here a focus on individual manager's ethical dilemmas and problems that have characterised much business ethics work in the past, but rather a discussion of "stakeholder activism, global governance structures, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, corporate citizenship, ethical investment, stakeholder society, Internet-enabled corporation, environmental regimes, human rights, future generations, and ethical institutions for corporate accountability." 33

Similarly, on perusing the pages of the Journal of Business Ethics, which is probably the most widely read source of scholarship on the subject, it became immediately clear to us that academics in business ethics are now beginning to frame their work in other ways than the ethical theories of Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and the rest of the traditional business ethics canon. These big guns of philosophy still feature in the journal, but many writers also choose to go in different directions, and integrate their work within current debates about corporate citizenship, sustainability, globalization or gender (to name just as few).

Another illustration of this trend was the publication of a new textbook, Business Ethics: A European Perspective. The subtitle "Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization" indicates that this is not a traditional business ethics tome. 34 The book still discusses ethical theories and ethical dilemmas, but it frames all this within the broader debates conjured up by the subtitle. Dirk Matten, one of the co-authors, told us that "most books on the market tend to relegate subjects like 'ethics and international business' and 'green business' to half a chapter each at the end of the book. We wanted to integrate globalization and sustainability as central concepts throughout, right from page 1 to the end."

That a business ethics textbook can combine discussion of ethical theories as diverse as rights, justice, feminist ethics, and postmodernism, with analysis of developments in business relations with all the major stakeholder groups, could mark a major step in the development of management education. "We wanted the book to stay true to the traditions of the business ethics subject, but at the same time we felt it was necessary to rewrite the rules about what should be covered in a business ethics textbook. The existing books simply didn't cover all of what we saw business ethics teachers across Europe teaching to their students," explained the other co-author Andy Crane.

The problem with business ethics has been that ethics came after business, both literally and conceptually. The context was nearly always assumed and managers asked to respond to a consequent dilemma. Today many managers and students of business are asking for something different - for ethics to be the starting point for their work. Consequently the 'business ethics' academe is evolving from treating managers as hostages to fortune toward helping them become masters of destiny.