ABSTRACT
Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House might just as easily have been called Bleak Business. It is a sad tale of how business extinguishes the human spirit and turns hope into despair. The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags on so long that its costs consume the whole of the estate, leaving its beneficiaries penniless. Laura Nash defines business ethics as 'the study of how personal moral norms apply to the activities and goals of commercial enterprise'. Albert Carr might add that there are also principles worth losing. He suggests that managers lead a double moral life, because their work and personal lives are governed by different rules of conduct. People with consciences have blown the whistle on their employers only to find themselves wounded in the blood of their principles. The evidence confirms that whistleblowers suffer for exposing corporate malpractices which is why the new Public Interest Disclosure Act in the UK seeks to protect their position.
