43 normatively and empirically working business ethicists from 12 countries discussed their research in Wittenberg.
The conference "The Is and Ought of Business Ethics: Empirical Evidence and Normative Arguments brought into Dialogue" took place on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Wittenberg Centre for Global Ethics from 4 to 6 October in the Lutherstadt Wittenberg. It is the third of its kind: in 2017 the first conference was organised in the context of the Reformation anniversary, in 2019 the second.
The conference focused on the reciprocal relationships between positive and normative research in business and business ethics. The starting point is that the scientific communities in business ethics have so far largely worked and published separately from each other, depending on their methodological and disciplinary focus. In contrast, the essence and unique selling point of our conference is to create a cross-methodological and cross-disciplinary platform that overcomes such boundaries. The aim was to promote a productive discourse between representatives of different methods and disciplines, which we consider a prerequisite for solving important problems in business ethics.
The conference began on Wednesday afternoon with a keynote address by Prof. Dr. Cristina Bicchieri from the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Dr. Sandro Ambühl from the University of Zurich gave the second keynote on Thursday afternoon by. In addition to the keynote lectures, 20 other researchers presented their work. Furthermore, Dr. Moritz Appels (Erasmus University), Dr. Julia Grimm (Stockholm University) and Dr. Rebecca Ruehle (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) gave young researchers valuable tips for planning their academic careers in the "Young Faculty Meeting". On Friday morning, a PhD workshop took place, where 13 PhD students had the chance to present papers and research ideas they are currently working on and to receive feedback from professors and established researchers.
The Wittenberg Centre for Global Ethics organized the conference in cooperation with the Friede Springer Chair for Business Ethics and Controlling (bema). The organising team consisted of Prof. Dr. Philipp Schreck, PD Dr. Lisa Schmalzried and three doctoral students of the doctoral program "Ethics and Responsible Leadership in Business", Cassandra Grützner, Simon Merz and Oleg Fedossev. We would like to thank the Karl Schlecht Foundation, the Friede Springer Foundation, the Research Commission of Martin Luther University and the Leucorea Foundation for their financial support of the conference.