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Timothy L. Fort (born 1958) is the Eveleigh Professorship in Business Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Fort is considered a founder in the field of business and peace.[1] Fort has twice won the Academy of Management's Best Book Award in the area of Social Issues in Management (SIM): for Business, Integrity, and Peace in 2010, and for The Diplomat in the Corner Office in 2016.[2] He also was a finalist for the award with Alexandra Christina in 2018 for Sincerity Edge: How ethical leaders build dynamic businesses (2017).[3] [4] Fort received the Distinguished Career Faculty Award of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business in 2022 and was nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.[5]
Fort attended the University of Notre Dame (B.A.'80, M.A.'84) and Northwestern University ('83, '95).[6] He earned both a Juris Doctor and a PhD in Theology from Northwestern University.[7]
Fort held the Bank One Assistant Professorship of Business Administration at the University of Michigan where he taught from 1994-2005. Fort served as the Lindner-Gambal Professor of Business Ethics at George Washington University (GWU) from 2005-2013.[8]
Fort then became the Eveleigh Professor of Business Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.[5] As of 2022,[9] Fort also became an Affiliated Scholar with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.[10] `
Fort's work is considered foundational in the field of business and peace research. He has written more than 80 articles and 15 books.[11] During the 1990s, Fort focused on ethical thinking and behavior within corporations. He developed the idea of viewing a business as a mediating institution, a community with its own values and ethics. This idea is developed in his book Ethics and Governance: Business as Mediating Institution (2001).[12] He also emphasized the need for such a culture to support behaviors such as raising and listening to difficult concerns, and questioning and challenging authority.[13]
Fort worked with Cindy A. Schipani to publish The Role of Business in Fostering Peaceful Societies (2004). Their work is credited with forming a basis for the UN Global Compact, helping to establish the field of business and peace, and providing a foundation for peacebuilding research in management.[1]
In 2010, Fort won the Academy of Management's Best Book Award in the area of Social Issues in Management (SIM) for Business, Integrity, and Peace (2007).[14] Fort approaches the relationship between business and society from an interdisciplinary perspective. He argues that the key principle underlying socially acceptable business behavior is the sense of trust between a business and society. He categorizes trust into three types:Hard Trust (legal compliance and following of government regulations), Real Trust (a corporate culture based on norms of natural law, justice, and moral integrity), and Good Trust (an individual employee's sense of moral or spiritual excellence based in meaningful work).
Fort argues that businesses reduce the likelihood of violence and create a more peaceful society through socially responsible activities such as creating jobs, providing equitable pay, avoiding corruption, and community building. Both company and society then benefit from operating under peaceful conditions. Some critics have argued that Fort's view is overly optimistic, and underestimates the potential for businesses to adapt to and benefit in the short term from a dysfunctional status quo.[15] Others suggest that businesses vary widely, ranging from local businesses to multinationals, in ways that need to be considered when studying their operation and impact.[16]
In 2016, Fort won the Best Book Award for Social Issues in Management (SIM) from the Academy of Management for The Diplomat in the Corner Office: Corporate Foreign Policy (2015).[17] In it, Fort provides a framework for the examination of business and peace.Companies are described as contributing to peace through peacemaking (e.g. helping to settle disputes), peacekeeping (e.g. maintaining an agreement), and peacebuilding (long-term activities that incrementally enhance peace). Peace entrepreneurs see the promotional of peace as fundamental to their mission. Peace instrumentalists see a peaceful society as aligned with their strategic interests as a business. Unintentional contributors can benefit society by following ethical business practices, even if they do not identify peace as an explicit goal.[18] Fort is credited with offering "a new and compelling perspective" on the leadership role to be taken by multinational businesses in promoting peace in the countries in which they work.[19]
The sincerity edge: how ethical leaders build dynamic businesses (2017) was a finalist for the SIM Book Award in 2018. It discusses both exceptional organizations and ethical failures. Sincerity is described in terms of the extent to which an organization recognizes and lives out values of integrity, trust, and authenticity as goods in and of themselves. The sincerity edge has been described as "a thoughtful, well-researched text that challenges and encourages the best in organizations and individuals".[20]