Establishing ethical values in entrepreneurial decision making: The justification for a cognitive network

Entrepreneurship, which mainly aims at creating values and goods, cannot be further conceived without referring to some ethics principles, which, despite being of a general nature, are to be made visible and socially assessable when decisions are made (strategic choices). This article is dedicated to ethics in the realm of entrepreneurship and is organized in three parts. In the first part, the difference between two forms of implementation of ethics is stressed: the traditional form, which is transcendental, universal and applicable in all circumstances, and a second form, which refers to some more specific and recent cases, and varies with the type of activity and the circumstances. The latter includes the ethics of entrepreneurship. The second part of this article analyses entrepreneurial ethics as a finalized cognitive activity entailing opposite objectives ruled by the uneasy realization of a compromise in a context of uncertainty. The last part underlines the advantages of a change of paradigm. The sciences of complexity cover a group of properties specific to evolutionary systems, which show that entrepreneurial ethics result from the activation of a cognitive network.