2. INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS
ETHICS
Business ethics (also known as corporate
ethics) is a form of applied ethics or
professional ethics that examines ethical
principles and moral or ethical problems that
arise in a business environment. It applies
to all aspects of business conduct and is
relevant to the conduct of individuals and
entire organizations.
3. All businesses have the same essential
issues of ethical business conduct namely
product quality, transparency of financial
statements, workplace quality and safety
standards, keeping pace with global
environmental issues and compliance with
country laws and industry standards.
Public’s interest in business ethics
increased during the last four decades
4. Ethical Issues in Business
Employee-Employer Relations
Employer-Employee Relations
Company-Customer Relations
Company-Shareholder Relations
Company-Community/Public Interest
5. Business Ethics: What Does It
Really Mean?
Definitions
Ethics involves a discipline that examines
good or bad practices within the context of a
moral duty
Moral conduct is behavior that is right or
wrong
Business ethics include practices and
behaviors that are good or bad
6. Business Ethics: What Does It
Really Mean?
Two Key Branches of Ethics
Descriptive ethics involves describing,
characterizing and studying morality
– “What is”
Normative ethics involves supplying and
justifying moral systems
– “What should be”
7.
8. Values
Values are the rules by which we make
decisions about right and wrong, should and
shouldn't, good and bad. They also tell us
which are more or less important, which is
useful when we have to trade off meeting
one value over another.
9. Morals
Morals have a greater social element to
values and tend to have a very broad
acceptance. Morals are far more about
good and bad than other values. We thus
judge others more strongly on morals than
values. A person can be described as
immoral, yet there is no word for them not
following values.
10. Ethics
You can have professional ethics, but you seldom
hear about professional morals. Ethics tend to be
codified into a formal system or set of rules which
are explicitly adopted by a group of people. Thus
you have medical ethics. Ethics are thus internally
defined and adopted, whilst morals tend to be
externally imposed on other people.
If you accuse someone of being unethical, it is
equivalent of calling them unprofessional and may
well be taken as a significant insult and perceived
more personally than if you called them immoral
(which of course they may also not like).
11. "What is wrong is wrong, even if
everyone is
doing it. Right is still right, even
if no one
else is doing it."
