Business Ethics Concepts and Cases Ch.1

ethical relativism

The theory that there are no ethical standards that are absolutely true and that apply or should be applied to the companies and people of all societies.

corporate social responsibility

is a business's societal obligations.

moral reasoning should

- Be logical. - Rely on evidence or information that is accurate, relevant, and complete. - Be consistent.

Arguments supporting ethics in business

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

Gilligan's Theory of "Female" Moral Development

- For women morality is primarily a matter of caring and responsibility. - Moral development for women is progress toward better ways of caring and being responsible. - Women move from a conventional stage of caring for others to the neglect of oneself, to a postconventional stage of achieving balance between caring for others and caring for oneself.

Integrated social contracts theory indicates that

- Hypernorms should apply to people in all societies. - Microsocial norms apply only in specific societies and differ from one society to another.

Arguments against ethics in business

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

Differences among nations

- Include differences in law, governments, practices, levels of development, cultural understandings. - Raise the question whether managers in foreign countries should follow local standards or their home standards.

6 characteristics of moral standards

- Involve serious wrongs or significant benefits. - Should be preferred to other values including self-interest. - Not established by authority figures. - Felt to be universal. (feel that everyone should live up to that standard). - Base on impartial considerations. - Associated with special emotions and vocabulary.

Depending on how serious a wrong is, moral responsibility for it can be mitigated by

- Minimal contribution. - Uncertainty. - Difficulty.

Research and Moral Identity suggests

- Morality is not an important part of the self, the stronger the motivation to be moral. - The more morality becomes the part of the self, the stronger the motivation to be moral. - Judgments of right and wrong depend in part on the kind of person we think the self is, i.e. on the virtues we think are part of our self.

Should ethical qualities be attributed only to people or also to corporations?

- One view says corporations, like people act intentionally and have moral rights, 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 action 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.

Carrying out one's decision can be influenced by

- One's strength or weakness of will. - One's belief about the locus of control of one's action.

Business ethics is a study of

- Our moral standards insofar as they apply to business. - How reasonable or unreasonable moral standards we have absorbed from society are. - The implications of our moral standards have for business activities.

A person is morally responsible for an injury only if

- Person caused or help cause the injury, or failed to prevent it when he or she could and should have. - Person did so knowing what he or she was doing. - Person did so of his or her own free will.

Kohlberg's 3 Levels of Moral Development

- Preconventional (punishment and obedience; instrumental and relative) - Conventionaly (interpersonal and concordance; law and order) - Postconventional (social contract; universal principles).

Four steps leading to ethical behavior

- Recognizing a situation is an ethical situation. - Judging what the ethical course of action is. - Deciding to do the ethical course of action. - Carrying out the decision.

Recognizing a situation as ethical

- Requires framing is as one that requires ethical reasoning. - Situation is likely to be seen as ethical when it involves serious harm that is concentrated, likely, proximate, imminent, and potentially violates our moral standards. - Obstacles to recognizing a situation is ethical include: euphemistic labeling, justifying our actions, advantageous comparisons, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, distorting the harm, and dehumanization, and attribution of blame.

A judgment about the ethical course of action

- Requires moral reasoning that applies our moral standards to the information we have about a situation. - Requires realizing that information about a situation may be distorted by biased theories about the world, about others, and about oneself.

Objections to ethical relativism

- Some moral standards are found in all societies. - Moral differences do not logically imply relativism. - Relativism has incoherent consequences. - Relativism privileges whatever moral standards are widely accepted in society.

Moral responsibility is not removed or mitigated by

- The cooperation of others. - Following orders

Deciding to do what is ethical can be influenced by

- The culture of an organization. - Moral seduction

moral reasoning involves

- The moral standards by which we evaluate things. - Information about what is being evaluated. - A moral judgment about what is being evaluated.

Globalization is

- To a large extent driven by multinationals. - Beneficial in that it has brought great benefits to developing countries including job skills, income, technology, a decrease in poverty, specialization. - Blamed for many ills including rising inequality, cultural losses, a "race to the bottom" (lower wages, environmental standard, etc. to attract foreign companies), introduction of inappropriate technologies into developing countries.

multinational corporation

A company that maintains manufacturing, marketing, service, or administrative operations in several "host" companies.

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 to act.

The shareholder view of Friedman

A manager's only responsibility is to legally and ethically make as much money as possible for shareholders.

business ethics

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

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. ex: a sociology or anthropology study

normative study

An investigation that attempts to reach conclusions about what things are good or bad or about what actions are right or wrong. ex: an ethics study

stakeholder

Any identifiable group or individual who can affect the achievement of an organization's objectives.

corporate issues

Ethical questions about a particular corporation and its policies, culture, climate impact, and actions. Example: Was a company's actions just?

individual issues

Ethical questions about a particular individual's decisions, behavior, or character. Example: Was Vandivier's decision to write the report on the A7-D brake morally justified?

systemic issues

Ethical questions about the social, political, legal, or economic systems within which companies operate. Example: Morality of the government contracting system through which B.F. Goodrich was able to test the adequacy its own brake design.

stakeholder theory

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

ethics

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

moral standards

The norms about the kinds of actions believed to be morally right and wrong as well as the values placed on what we believe to be morally good and morally bad. ex: Do not lie. Do not steal.

moral reasoning

The reasoning process by which human behaviors, institutions, or policies are judged to be in accordance with or in violation of moral standards.

non-moral standards and norms

The standards by which we judge what is good or bad and right or wrong in a non-moral way. ex: standards of grammar and the law.

morality

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

informations technology

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

business ethics

is both a part of corporate social responsibility and part of the justification for corporate social responsibility.

Psychological research on moral reasoning

suggests that emotions are necessary for moral reasoning.

Kinds of ethical issues:

systemic, corporate, and individual.