Business Ethics
Business ethics refers to the moral principles and values that guide the behavior and decision-making processes within a business environment. It involves considering the impact of business actions on various stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, and the community, and making decisions that align with ethical standards and social responsibility. Adhering to business ethics can enhance reputation, build trust, and contribute to long-term success.
7 Key excerpts on "Business Ethics"
eBook - ePubTeams
A Competency Based Approach
- Consuelo M. Ramirez(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Ethics are ethics; yet, it is important to blend these concepts into the business environment where daily decisions are based on a continuum that includes all considerations from legal statutes to free choice. Ethics principles, ethical thinking and ethical decision making can serve as the stronghold for all business endeavors. The concepts of social responsibility and sustainability will add substance to this study of ethics in the business environment. Chapter 7 Competencies The purpose of this chapter is to help you • Review ethics principles and practices in business. • Describe the relationship between ethics, the law and free choice. • Understand the principles of social responsibility. • Define sustainability and why it is important. • Apply ethics principles to establishing an ethical environment. Figure 7.1 Ethics Principles and Practices in Business Ethics is, simply stated, about decisions and behavior with regard to right and wrong—as individuals, in groups and teams, within organizations and within society in general. Business Ethics, also simply stated, is about the decisions we make and how we behave with regard to what is right and wrong as business individuals, in business groups and teams, within business organizations and within society in general. Kirk Hanson, the executive director of the Markula Center for Applied Ethics, at Santa Clara University, suggests five ways to think about ethics...
eBook - ePub- SAGE Publications(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...PART I Business Ethics Business Ethics Theories of Ethics Stakeholder Theory Ethical Decision Making Competition Strategy and Ethics Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Social Performance (CSP) Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility Business Ethics A lthough defining Business Ethics has been somewhat problematic, several definitions have been proposed. For example, Richard De George defines the field broadly as the interaction of ethics and business, and although its aim is theoretical, the product has practical application. Manuel Velasquez defines the Business Ethics field as a specialized study of moral right and wrong. Unfortunately, a great deal of confusion appears to remain within both the academic and the business communities, as other related business and society frameworks, such as corporate social responsibility, stakeholder management, sustainability, and corporate citizenship, are often used interchangeably with or attempt to incorporate Business Ethics. Relative to other business and society frameworks, however, Business Ethics appears to place the greatest emphasis on the ethical responsibilities of business and its individual agents, as opposed to other firm responsibilities (e.g., economic, legal, environmental, or philanthropic). A BRIEF HISTORY OF Business Ethics The subject of Business Ethics has been around since the very first business transaction. For example, the Code of Hammurabi, created nearly 4,000 years ago, records that Mesopotamian rulers attempted to create honest prices. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle discussed the vices and virtues of tradesmen and merchants. The Old Testament and the Jewish Talmud discuss the proper way to conduct business, including topics such as fraud, theft, proper weights and measures, competition and free entry, misleading advertising, just prices, and environmental issues. The New Testament and the Koran also discuss Business Ethics as it relates to poverty and wealth...
eBook - ePub- Peter Stanwick, Sarah Stanwick(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 The foundations of Business Ethics Essential summary As humans, we live in a world where rules and regulations are the guidance used to determine right from wrong. However, beyond complying with the legal responsibilities of being a respected member of society, individuals must understand what their ethical responsibilities are when making decisions and taking actions. This introductory chapter explores ethics from a practical philosophical perspective. From explaining what ethics and Business Ethics are, to explaining why it is important to study ethics, this chapter lays the ethical groundwork for subsequent chapters. Included among other topics in the chapter is how individuals can structure their decision-making process to make ethical decisions. Both the teleological and deontological frameworks are presented to give an understanding of the philosophical foundation of ethics. The chapter also presents an interesting ethical dilemma involving a runaway trolley. How the reader responds to this dilemma can give insights into the individual’s own moral compass. In summary, this chapter gives the reader the opportunity to see how ethics impacts everyone’s day-to-day life experiences. What is ethics? The ability to be accountable and take responsibly for one’s actions is a fundamental tenant of being a human being. To guide the process of our actions, we have established guidelines for what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in society. Each person’s own ethical values determine the ethical behavior of everyone. Therefore, ethics can be defined as the personal values of the individual which are used to interpret whether a specific action or actions are acceptable and appropriate...
- Stephen Taylor, Graham Perkins(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- CIPD - Kogan Page(Publisher)
...16 Ethics and values It is important to recognise that two major perspectives can be taken with regards to Business Ethics. The first of these involves thinking about the subject at the level of the individual organisation or manager, focusing on ethical decision making and professionalism, whilst the other is considerably broader and involves consideration of the impact (in ethical terms) that contemporary business activity is having on society more generally. In some respects, businesses operating in a capitalist economic system have a positive social impact, for example by creating wealth, by providing career opportunities for individuals, and in the creation of socially useful products and services. Having said this, there are also ethically questionable impacts, too, notably global warming and the concerns regarding increasing levels of social inequity. This chapter principally covers the first of the two perspectives outlined above; this decision has been made due to the nature of this text and the rising importance of the subject of ethics within the contemporary management agenda. Previous chapters in this book have considered, in detail, the context within which organisations are operating. There are a number of important developments that influence management actions, including ethical decision making, and these include the rapid growth we have seen in competitive intensity, financialisation, ethical consumerism and the rise of ethical investment funds. In short, what must be recognised is that the business landscape has become more competitive over time, and as a result we are seeing competitive advantage endure for a considerably shorter period of time than was previously the case. There are therefore demands on organisations to reduce their cost base and maximise their short-term returns to shareholders if they are to remain attractive to investors...
eBook - ePub- William J. Rothwell, William J. Rothwell(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Pfeiffer(Publisher)
...ARTICLE 14 Business Ethics Thomas J. Horvath The definition of the word “business” is straightforward and without question—the dictionary provides the following phrases: line of work, commercial organization, and commercial activity. The word “ethics” also provides definitive phrases from the dictionary: study of morality’s effect on conduct, code of morality. However, when combining the two words together, “Business Ethics” does not provide a singular accepted definition in the dictionary, academia, the press, or the halls of corporate America. Perhaps “Business Ethics” is just an oxymoron! It is no wonder that everyone is confused. Newspapers and courtrooms are filled with corporate crimes and indiscretions, and many people are asking, “Why didn’t somebody catch this earlier?” But who is “somebody”? and What is the exact definition of “this”? The complexity of Business Ethics spans much broader and deeper than any one department reaches, but there is a strategic opportunity for leaders in the organization, most certainly including the HR department, to position themselves as part of their organization’s ethics solution. The Scope of Business Ethics Ethics in business come from many directions and perspectives and sometimes the “right” thing to do is clear as a bell, while at other times the ethics issue is barely identifiable, lost in the drone of the marketplace. What organizations and employees are doing—or not doing—are topics of debate, discussion, analysis, and legislation...
eBook - ePubThe Balanced Company
Organizing for the 21st Century
- Inger Jensen, John Damm Scheuer(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 A Business Ethics Approach to Balance Jacob Dahl Rendtorff The main message and concern of this chapter is that through a strategy of integrity, stakeholder management, sustainability, and triple-bottom-line thinking—translated through the balanced scorecard—a company can implement important instruments for practically dealing with achieving the right balance in Business Ethics. In Business Ethics, balance is closely related to corporate integrity (Rendtorff 2010b). It focuses on the idea that companies need to balance ethical complexities and economic concerns in stakeholder relations and that it is possible to balance between economic profits and other concerns of the corporation (Freeman 1984, Elkington 1999, Freeman 2004, Philips 2003). In particular, we can say that matters of ethical leadership and Business Ethics are an important aspect of the balanced company, but issues of external public relations and the ethics of corporate branding are also important to consider. What is needed is to better develop a definition of corporate balance as integrity. This work has been started by Muel Kaptein and Johan Wempe (2002) in their important book The Balanced Company. A Corporate Integrity Theory. One way to proceed with this kind of thinking is to use the language of corporate citizenship, which involves concern for the well-being of global society and for sustainable development. There is a close relation between balance and balancing, and the notion of sustainable development, defined as respectful use of resources with concern for the rights of future generations and respect for the integrity and balance of nature and society. In this sense the contribution of this chapter is to see balance as a topic of corporate citizenship...
eBook - ePubBehavioral Business Ethics
Shaping an Emerging Field
- David De Cremer, Ann E. Tenbrunsel, David De Cremer, Ann E. Tenbrunsel(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The 1970s gave birth to Business Ethics as a self-conscious academic discipline (De George, 2008). This portrayal of moral philosophy should be viewed with at least a bit of skepticism, for my one undergraduate course in philosophy does not qualify me as an expert. Indeed, my lack of formal training in philosophy is what leads me not to want to tackle the problem of defining the object of what we behavioral Business Ethics researchers study and, rather, to nibble around its edges. I think a lot of other social scientists interested in ethics are in the same boat. Now, on to mapping territory more familiar to me—what has been called empirical (e.g., Doris & Stich, 2005) or behavioral ethics (e.g., Treviño, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006). “Behavioral ethics” entails the social scientific study of ethical behavior. Like Haidt (2008), my list of relevant social science is rather lengthy—psychology (developmental, social, cultural, evolutionary, organizational, and moral), sociology, sociobiology, and behavioral economics. I do not know if I can get away with listing primatology and neuroscience as social sciences; nevertheless, they also are relevant. Finally, we come to the subarea of behavioral Business Ethics, which is concerned with understanding the nature and causes of ethical behavior in business settings. Does the “in business settings” part matter? I think so, at least sometimes. But, it is both a theoretical and an empirical question if and, if so, when the results obtained in behavioral ethics, more generally construed, hold in business settings. Of course, the economics of business settings may drive behaviors in ways not seen in other life domains...
