8th Business Summit focused on business ethics

The eighth edition of the Business Summit at the FHV met with great interest. The focus was on three keynote speeches that examined the topic of business ethics in different ways. 

Future-oriented dialog 

The Business Summit is an established platform for future-oriented dialog. With this event, the FHV puts socially and economically relevant topics on the agenda that will influence the long-term future of our region. Organizer Markus Ilg, professor at the FHV, provides an insight: "Thinking outside the box, bringing representatives:inside from companies and organizations into dialogue with students, lecturers and researchers and reflecting on the impulses from the keynotes. The Business Summit is a format that opens up new perspectives for all participants away from day-to-day business."

For Anna Knorr, Head of Department of Business and Management at the FHV, an awareness of concrete responsibility in later professional activities is an essential part of academic education: "For me, ethics means combining professional competence with responsibility during studies. Knowledge without values has no direction."

Michael Alge, Chairman of the Managing Board of Raiffeisen Landesbank Vorarlberg, emphasized: "Business ethics is the compass that guides companies towards sustainable success on the one hand and social responsibility on the other. Especially in today's times of rapid change, it is crucial to live values consistently in Business and Management."

Ethics and the state

In his keynote speech entitled "Ethics and the state", Wolfgang Peschorn addressed the importance of the rule of law in defining the rules for living together in society. He sees the state as the organization of society. In a constitutional state, the legislator, as the representative of society, determines what is right and wrong. Therefore, the laws should correspond to the ethical standards of society, because citizens and state bodies must behave in accordance with the law.

Responsibility in the age of AI

Sabrina Schneider's keynote on "Limits of Delegation: Ethical Responsibility in Dealing with AI" highlighted the growing role of AI as a decision-maker and the associated opportunities and risks. She showed how the delegation of tasks and decisions to technological agents creates new freedom, but at the same time responsibility does not disappear, but is shifted. The focus was on the limits of delegation - especially where human judgment and ethical consideration remain indispensable. At the same time, it was discussed how AI can not only reflect existing inequalities, but also reinforce them (artificial inequality). The keynote invited participants to rethink responsibility in the age of intelligent systems.

Fair play for Business and Management

Ex-professional footballer Viktoria Schnaderbeck used the example of the 2017 European Championship in women's soccer to illustrate how living values, fairness and resilience enable sustainable success. Her message: ethical principles are a basic prerequisite for long-term success in both sport and Business and Management.