In the last chapter, Camus retells the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When they finally captured Sisyphus, the gods administered his punishment: for all eternity, Sisyphus would push a rock up a mountain; at the top, the rock would roll down to the ground and Sisyphus would be forced to start again. Camus presented Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. "The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."

For me, this rare moment is often when the entrepreneurial individual decides to do something about their lot; to take personal responsibility of their life-world, although not always in starting a new venture. In 1985, Gifford Pinchot coined the term "Intrapreneur" which he defined as someone "behaving like an entrepreneur when you're employed at a large corporation for the benefit of the corporation as a whole".

These are no recent phenomena. Around 350BC, Aristotle argued that when a person acts in accordance with their nature and realizes their full potential, (s)he will do good and be content. However, this was no abstract idea, Aristotle considered the study of ethics to be of a practical rather than theoretical concern i.e., one aimed at doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. Aristotle called it, "self-realizationism” and as we know, ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality (e.g. concepts such as good and bad, noble and ignoble, right and wrong, justice, and virtue). So, if you hold the view that, actions speak louder than words, you might perhaps concur that we need less factory and office workers and more intra- and entrepreneurs.

But the trouble for entrepreneurial individuals is they are often seen as someone in “business for themselves” and “rule-breakers” who take advantage of opportunities they have identified or created. George Benkert, former Editor for Business Ethics Quarterly recently posited that, following such injunctions may lead entrepreneurs into a number of moral dilemmas, especially when rule breaking takes place within legal and moral contexts. There’s no doubting the fact that some of these rule violations, of the moral and legal sort have become part of their mythology. I was once told by a Civil Servant in Bucharest that being called an Entrepreneur was tantamount to being labeled a crook. What cannot be denied though is without bold or devious acts, some of their products and companies would never have got to market.

Whether or not Bernie Madoff, the former Wall Street stockbroker and architect of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, suffered such moral dilemmas over his behaviour is questionable. You will recall that in 2009, Madoff was given multiple life sentences for defrauding billions of dollars from investors through his wealth management business. While there is no defending such illegal and morally corrupt practices, for me, the most interesting part of this case can be found in the Harry Markopolis book, No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller.

In his book, Markopolis, a financial analyst with a Boston Investment Company, described how he sent a report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission in 2005, claiming that it was legally and mathematically impossible to achieve the gains Madoff claimed to deliver. His warnings went unheeded despite continuing his campaign right up to Madoff’s arrest in 2008. The following year, Markopolis explained in a 65 page testimony to Congress that “Nothing was done. There was an abject failure by the regulatory agencies we entrust as our watchdog…..Madoff was one of the most powerful men on Wall Street.”

One wonders whether George Osborne had read Markopolis’ book before he announced in his first Mansion House speech that the UK’s, Financial Services Authority will “cease to exist in its current form” in 2012. With the Government forced to bailout vast tranches of the UK banking sector during its watch, one suspects the FSA might never have taken action against Madoff.

When faced with such accounts of rule breaking perhaps the old maxim is true, one should never break rules, certainly not moral or legal ones. But are there any occasions when the end justifies the means? Josef Schumpeter, the famous Austrian economist and political scientist, argued that the innovation and technological change of a nation comes from the entrepreneur, or wild spirit. He employed the word Unternehmergeist, German for entrepreneur-spirit, to describe those among us who were actively engaged in creative destruction – the creation of novelty and the destruction of old products and processes. It may follow that, if entrepreneurs are viewed as engaging in creative destruction, there’s perhaps no reason why this notion might not apply to the law and morality as well.

Consequently, the only way to permit the changes that Schumpeter described, would be to appeal to some principle behind the rule, which would justify breaking certain of them. Until now, the adherence to “playing by the rules” has relied upon fixed principles from which we may derive the specific rules we are bound to follow.

I support Benkert’s view that the life-world of an entrepreneur is a labyrinth when one attempts to unpack the ethics of entrepreneurship. The complexity of this life-world can be framed in series of episodes in which genuine moral rules are broken and yet such behaviour is accepted as part of entrepreneurship. So, I would take a view that a static rule-based view of entrepreneurial ethics is inappropriate in a dynamic society on four dimensions. First, individual moral rules often fail because society outgrows them. Second, the life-world of the entrepreneur is linked overwhelmingly with the success of their project and, this can distort their view of its actual capabilities. Third, rules can appear in conflict, making life confusing for rule abider and entrepreneur alike. Finally, rules are not predictors of the future; they reflect only today’s standing, providing nothing other than a guide for the future challenges faced by society and the entrepreneur.

So, what kind of rules might be justifiably broken? Muhammad Yunus is the founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank. During a research project in 1976 he realised that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to those living in poverty, especially when targeted at women. Whilst the ideas behind micro-credit resided elsewhere, it was Yunus who turned the opportunity into action by creating an institution to lend to those who had nothing. Yunus and his colleagues encountered everything from radicals to the conservative clergy who told women that they would be denied a Muslim burial if they borrowed money from the Grameen Bank. Unperturbed, the bank and its founder continued and were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." As of 2009, the Bank had issued US$ 9.4 billion to 8.3 million borrowers. It has 2,564 branches, works in 81,362 villages and has a staff of 22,807. If Yunus had simply followed the rules there would be possibly be no Grameen Bank today.

Whereas Camus describes ‘the workman of today’ and his tragic condition, Aristotle guides us on how to be ‘an ethical entrepreneur’. By whose rule would you be happy to be judged?

About the author: Nigel Culkin is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Hertfordshire, the UK’s leading Entrepreneurial University. Nigel's research papers and thought leaders articles are highly regarded throughout the industry, where he is also Chair of the Film Industry Research Group (FiRG) and a Member of the East of England Creative Industries Steering Group.

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