Teaching the 'Friedman vs. Freeman Debate' in a Way That Opens Students' Minds to a Wider Variety of Views on
Business Ethics

Aurélien Feix; Charline Collard

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Teaching the 'Friedman vs. Freeman Debate' in a Way That Opens Students' Minds to a Wider Variety of Views on Business Ethics

Aurélien Feix and Charline Collard

TBS Business School, Toulouse, France

Volume 21: 2024 pp. 00-00: ABSTRACT

One way in which business ethics educators can introduce business ethics to their students is through the so-called “Friedman vs. Freeman debate”. However, a growing body of literature challenges the juxtaposition of the views of Friedman and Freeman—two authors commonly seen as archetypal proponents of the “shareholder model” and the “stakeholder model” of the firm, respectively. This article argues that it can still be valuable to introduce students to the doctrines of Friedman and Freeman—provided that it is done in a way that neither overemphasizes the differences between these doctrines nor suggests that they exhaust the variety of viewpoints that exist on business ethics. We offer a pedagogical tool, in the form of a two-dimensional matrix, that can help educators do this, and discuss how the matrix can be used in the classroom to make students aware of the diversity of existing positions in business ethics.

Keywords: business ethics education, Friedman vs. Freeman debate, shareholder vs. stakeholder debate, pedagogical tools