Question

Post a detailed executive summary on what you have learnt about business ethics. Highlight the main focus areas that were the most valuable to you and describe why.

Answer 1

Business Ethics: comprises principles, values, and standards that guide behavior in the world of business. Involves carefully thought-out rules of conduct that guide decision-making.

Ethics: concerns itself with human conduct and the standards of duty and principles of virtue that prescribe what is morally right, good, and proper.

•Not what we say or what we intend, but what we DO.Principles: specific boundaries for behavior that is universal and absolute (Freedom of speech, civil liberties)

Ethical Culture: the character of the decision-making process that employees use to determine where their responses to ethical issues are right or wrong.

Ethical Values: beliefs about what is morally Right or WrongValues: basic and important beliefs and attitudes that guide and shape our decisionsCharacter: your ethics and values in action

Business ethics is The system of laws and guidelines by which business professionals and corporations operate in a fair, legal and moral fashion. Business ethics is The study of proper business policies and practices regarding potentially controversial issues, such as corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, corporate social responsibility and fiduciary responsibilities.Law often guides business ethics, while other times provide a basic framework that businesses may choose to follow in order to gain public acceptance.

Many businesses feel that practicing good business ethics is costly and unnecessary to become a profitable operation, arguments against the implementation of Ethics:

1.In perfectly competitive markets, the pursuit of profits will ensure members of society are served in the most socially-beneficial way. (the invisible hand of the market)

2. Business managers should do what is in the best interests of the organization. (loyal agent argument).

3.To be ethical, it is enough for business people merely to obey the law. (Business ethics is to obey the law

Being ethical in business is difficult. Yes, it is hard to be ethical in business. However, it is necessary. Well-reasoned arguments, by reason of their clarity, invite counterarguments:-

Hard to find an example of perfect competition.

-The legal environment of business consists of the laws and regulations that have been passed to prevent unethical business activities from occurring when free markets cannot.

-Not all steps to increase profit are socially-beneficial

-Usually a very short-term view of benefit.

-Usually only a financial view.

-Basically says ethics don’t matter at all.

-Ethics is not limited to what is legal.

-Provides a useful excuse to act “unethically”