Business Ethics

Group Two

"Do not eat with your mouth open," "Do not chew gum in class," "Do not wear sox that do not match."

Group One

"Do not harm other people," "Do not lie to other people," "Do not steal what belongs to others."

What is a stakeholder?

"any identifiable group or individual who can affect the achievement of an organization's objectives or who is affected by the achievement of an organization's objectives." i.e. anyone who has a "stake" in what the company does.

"loyal agent's argument."

(1) As a loyal agent of his or her employer, the manager has a duty to serve the employer as the employer would want to be served (if the employer had the agent's expertise). (2) An employer would want to be served in whatever ways will advance his or her interests. (3) Therefore, as a loyal agent of the employer, the manager has a duty to serve the employer in whatever ways will advance the employer's interests.

Arguments Against Ethics in Business

1. In a free market economy, the pursuit of profit will ensure maximum social benefit so business ethics is not needed. 2. A manager's most important obligation is loyalty to the company regardless of ethics. 3. So long as companies obey the law they will do all that ethics requires.

Six Characteristics of Moral Standards

1. Involve serious wrongs or significant benefits. i.e. Murder, rape 2. Should be preferred to other values including self-interest 3. Not established by authority figures 4. Felt to be universal 5. Based on impartial considerations 6. Associated with special emotions and vocabulary

Arguments Supporting Ethics in Business

1.) Ethics applies to all human activities. 2.) Business cannot survive without ethics. 3.) Ethics is consistent with profit seeking. 4.) Customers, employees, and people in general care about ethics. 5.) Studies suggest ethics does not detract from profits and seems to contribute to profits.

Objections to Ethical Relativism

1.) Some moral standards are found in all societies. 2.) Moral differences do not logically imply relativism. 3.) Relativism has incoherent consequences. 4.) Relativism privileges whatever moral standards are widely accepted in a society.

New Technologies Raise New Ethical Issues for Business

1.) The agricultural and industrial revolutions introduced new ethical issues. 2.) Information technology raises new ethical issues related to risk, privacy, and property rights. 3.) Nanotechnology and biotechnology raise new ethical issues related to risk and to the spread of dangerous products.

Globalization Is..

1.) To a large extent driven by multinationals 2.) Beneficial in that it has brought great benefits to developing countries including jobs, skills, income, technology, a decrease in poverty, specialization 3.) Blamed for many ills including rising inequality, cultural losses, a "race to the bottom," introduction of inappropriate technologies into developing countries.

What is a multicultural corporation?

A company that has manufacturing, marketing, service, or administrative operations in many different nations.

What is the shareholder's view of CSR?

A company's only responsibility is to legally and ethically "make as much money as possible" for its owners, i.e., to maximize shareholder returns.

What is genetic engineering?

A large variety of new techniques that allows change in the genes of the cells of humans, animals, and plants.

What is the law of agency

A law that specifies the duties of persons who agree to act on behalf of another party and who are authorized by an agreement so to act.

What is nanotechnology?

A new field that encompasses the development of tiny artificial structures only nanometers (billionths of a meter) in size.

What is Business Ethics?

A specialized study of moral right and wrong that concentrates on moral standards as they apply to business institutions, organizations, and behavior.

What is the cyberspace?

A term used to denote the existence of information on an electronic network of linked computer systems.

Define a descriptive study

An investigation that attempts to describe or explain the world without reaching any conclusions about whether the world is as it should be.

Define a normative study

An investigation that attempts to reach conclusions about what things are good or bad or about what actions are right or wrong.

How are business ethics and corporate social responsibility related?

Being ethical, according to most scholars, is one of the obligations companies owe to society. In this respect, business ethics is a part of corporate social responsibility.

Moral norms

Can usually be expressed as general rules about our actions, such as "Always tell the truth," "It's wrong to kill innocent people," or "Actions are right to the extent that they produce happiness."

Moral values

Can usually be expressed with statements about objects or features of objects that have worth, such as "Honesty is good," and "Injustice is bad."

What are instrumental arguments?

Claim that being responsive to all of its stakeholders is in the best interests of the corporation even though it may not be in the best interests of shareholders.

What are normative arguments?

Claim that the company has a moral or ethical obligation to be responsive to all its stakeholders.

What are individual issues?

Ethical questions raised about a particular individual or particular individuals within a company and their behaviors and decisions. i.e. include questions about the morality of the decisions, actions, or character of an individual.

What are corporate issues?

Ethical questions raised about a particular organization. i.e. include questions about the morality of the activities, policies, practices, or organizational structure of an individual company taken as a whole.

What are systematic issues?

Ethical questions raised about the economic, political, legal, and other institutions within which businesses operate. i.e. include questions about the morality of capitalism or of the laws, regulations, industrial structures, and social practices within which U.S. businesses operate.

According to the ISCT framework, what are the two types of moral standards?

Hypernorms and Microsocial norms

What two main kinds of arguments support the "stakeholder" view of corporate social responsibility?

Instrumental and Normative

Should Ethical Qualities be Attributed Only to People or Also to Corporations?

One view says corporations, like people, act intentionally and have moral rights, and obligations, and are morally responsible. Another view says it makes no sense to attribute ethical qualities to corporations since they are not like people but more like machines; only humans can have ethical qualities. A middle view says that humans carry out the corporation's actions so they are morally responsible for what they do and ethical qualities apply in a primary sense to them; corporations have ethical qualities only in a derivative sense.

Who should Microsocial norms apply to

Only specific societies and differ from one society to another.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Refers to a corporation's responsibilities or obligations toward society.

What is Globalization?

Refers to the way nations are becoming more connected so that goods, services, capital, knowledge, and cultural artifacts move across national borders at an increasing rate.

What is the stakeholder's theory?

Says managers should give all stakeholders a fair share of the benefits a business produces.

What is the principle of fairness?

Says that if a group of people works together to provide some benefits at some cost to themselves, then anyone who takes advantage of those benefits has an obligation to contribute his or her share to the group.

How does the principle of fairness support the stakeholder theory?

Stakeholder theory claims that a company's stakeholders work together to secure the conditions the company needs to operate successfully, and they do this at some cost to themselves.

What are three different kinds of issues that business ethics investigates?

Systemic, Corporate, and Individual

What did The psychologist Elliot Turiel and several others discover?

That by the age of three, a normal child has acquired the ability to tell the difference between moral norms and conventional norms. By age three, the child sees violations of moral norms as more serious and wrong everywhere, while violations of conventional norms are less serious and wrong only where authorities set such norms.

What is Ethics?

The discipline that examines one's moral standards or the moral standards of a society to evaluate their reasonableness and their implications for one's life.

Nonmoral standards

The standards by which we judge what is good or bad and right or wrong in a nonmoral way.

Other examples of nonmoral standards

The standards of language by which we judge what is grammatically right and wrong, the standards of art by which we judge whether a painting or a song is good or bad, and the sports standards by which we judge how well a game of football or basketball is being played.

Define Morality

The standards that an individual or a group has about what is right and wrong, or good and evil.

What is ethical relativism?

The theory that there are no ethical standards that are true absolutely, i.e., that the truth of all ethical standards depends on (is relative to) what a particular culture accepts.

What is information technology?

The use of extremely powerful and compact computers, the Internet, wireless communications, digitalization, and numerous other technologies that have enabled us to capture, manipulate, and move information in new and creative ways.

Example of Turiel's theory

Three year olds will say that while it is not wrong to chew gum at schools where teachers do not have a rule against it, it is still wrong to hit someone even at schools where teachers do not have a rule against hitting.

What is the Ultimate aim of ethics

To develop a body of moral standards that you feel are reasonable for you to hold—standards that you have thought about carefully and have decided are justified for you to accept and to apply to the choices that fill our lives.

Who should Hypernorms be applied to?

To people in all societies

Define Moral standards

include the norms we have about the kinds of actions we believe are morally right and wrong, as well as the values we place on what we believe is morally good or morally bad.

Examples of nonmoral standards

include the standards of etiquette by which we judge people's manners as good or bad, the rules of behavior set by parents, teachers, or other authorities.

Where do moral standards come from?

moral standards are first learned as a child from family, friends, and various societal influences such as church, school, television, magazines, music, and associations.

Examples of nonmoral norms

the norms we call the law by which we determine what is legally right and wrong.