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y Ethics are aimed at identifying both the rules that
should govern people’s behavior and the ‘goods’ that
are worth seeking
y Ethical decisions are guided by individual values
y Values are principles of conduct such as caring, honesty,
keeping of promises, etc
y Ethical Issues are situations, problems, or
opportunities in which an individual must choose
among several actions that must be evaluated as
morally right or wrong
y Business ethics are the moral principles and
standards that guide behavior in the world of
business
Ethics systems
y Moral Philosophy relates to the principles, rules, and values
people use in deciding what is right or wrong.
y Universalism is the ethical system upholding certain values
regardless of immediate result.
y Caux Principles are ethical principles established by
international executives based in Caux, Switzerland, in
collaboration with business leaders from Japan, Europe, and
the United States; has two basic focuses
y Kyosei – living and working together for the common good
y Human dignity – the value of each person as an end, not a
means to an end
Ethic systems
y Egoism is an ethical system defining acceptable
behavior as that which maximizes consequences
for the individual.
y Utilitarianism is an ethical system stating that
the greatest good for the greatest number should
be the overriding concern of decision makers.
y Relativism bases ethical behavior on the
opinions and behaviors of relevant other people.
y Virtue ethics is a perspective that what is moral
comes from what a mature person with “good”
moral character would deem right.
Ethical environment
y Ethical behavior may also
be influenced by the
company’s work
environment
y Ethical climate in an
organization refers to the
processes by which
decisions are evaluated and
made on the basis of right
and wrong
Danger signs
y Many factors create a climate conducive to unethical behavior,
some of these are:
y Excessive emphasis on short‐term revenues over longer‐term
considerations
y Failure to establishes a written code of ethics
y Desiring simple quick fix solutions to ethical problems
y Unwillingness to take an ethical stand that may impose financial
costs
y Consideration of ethics solely as a legal issue or a public relations
tool
y Lack of clear procedures for handling ethical problems
y Responding to the demands of shareholders at the expense of
other constituencies
Corporate ethics
y To create a culture that encourages ethical
behavior managers must lead others to behave
ethically
y An ethical leader is one who is both a moral person and
a moral manager influencing others to behave ethically
y Managers should ask themselves how they would
feel if they saw their decision and its
consequences on the front page of the newspaper
Code of ethics
y To be effective an ethics code must:
y Involve those who have to live with it in writing the statement
y Have a corporate statement but also allow separate statements by
different units throughout the organization
y Keep it short and therefore easily understood and remembered
y Is not too corny – it is something important that people really
believe in
y The tone is set at the top with executives talking about and living
up to the statement
Ethics programs
y Programs range from compliance‐based to
integrity‐based
y Compliance based programs are company mechanisms
typically designed by corporate counsel to prevent,
detect, and punish legal violations
y Integrity‐based programs are company mechanisms
designed to instill in people a personal responsibility
for ethical behavior
Ethical decision making
y Making an ethical decision requires
y Moral awareness – realizing the issue has ethical
implications
y Moral judgment – knowing what actions are morally
defensible
y Moral character – the strength and persistence to act in
accordance with your ethics despite the challenges
Ethical decision making
y Evaluating your ethical duties require that you
identify the actions that:
y You would be proud to see widely reported in
newspapers
y Would build a sense of community among those
involved
y Will generate the greatest social good
y You would be willing to see others take when you might
be the victim
y Doesn’t harm the least among us
y Doesn’t interfere with the right of everyone to develop
their skills to the fullest
Whistle blowing
y Whistle blowing is when an individual will tell
others, inside or outside the organization, of the
wrong doing of employees
y People decide whether to blow the whistle based
on their perceptions of the:
y The wrongful act
y Their emotions
y Cost‐benefit analysis
Corporate social responsibility
y Corporate social responsibility is the obligation a corporation
has towards society assumed by the business
y Specifically categorized as:
y Economic responsibilities _ producing goods and services that
society wants at a price that perpetuates the business and satisfies
its obligations to investors
y Legal responsibilities – obeying local, state, federal, and relevant
international laws
y Ethical responsibilities – meeting other social expectations, not
written as law
y Philanthropic responsibilities – additional behaviors and activities
that society finds desirable and that the values of the business
support
Transcendent education
y Transcendent education is an education that teaches students to
leave a legacy that extends beyond the bottom line; it is made up
of five higher goals that balance self‐interest with responsibility
to others
y Empathy – feeling your decisions as potential victims might feel
them
y Generativity – learning how to give as well as take
y Mutuality – viewing success not merely as personal gain but a
common victory
y Civil aspiration – thinking not just in term of don’ts but also in
terms of positive contributions
y Intolerance of ineffective humanity – speaking out against
unethical actions
Contrasting view
y There are two basic contrasting views about
which principles should guide managerial
responsibility
y Managers act as agents for shareholders and are
obligated to maximize the present value of the firm
y Managers should be motivated by principled moral
reasoning
Reconciliation
y Historically it was thought that profit maximization
and corporate social responsibility were regarded as
antagonistic, now the two views converge
y Early attention to corporate social responsibility
focused on alleged wrongdoing and how to control it;
more recently the attention has been on how socially
responsible behavior can lead to a competitive
advantage
y Socially responsible actions can have long‐term
advantages
y Companies avoid unnecessary and costly regulation
y Honesty and fairness may pay great dividends to the
conscience, reputation, and public image of the company
y Companies, like Pfizer, have shown that companies
can integrate social responsibility with corporate
strategy
The natural environment
y Historically business looked at
the environmental issue as a
no win proposition
y By helping the environment you
hurt your business and by
helping your business you hurt
the environment
y There has been a paradigm shit
that has lead to the deliberate
incorporation of
environmental values into
competitive strategies
A risk society
y The fundamental sources of risk in modern society are the
excessive production of hazards and ecologically unsustainable
consumption of natural resources
y Over 30,000 uncontrolled toxic waste sites have been documented
in the US; that number is increasing by 2,500 per year
y The world’s worst environmental problems are in China
y 6 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world are in China
y Water in five of the country’s largest rivers is dangerous to touch
y Living in some Chinese cities causes more lung damage than
smoking two packs of cigarettes a day
Ecocentric management
y Ecocentric management has as its goal the
creation of sustainable economic development
and improvement of quality of life worldwide for
all organizational stakeholders
y It is concerned about sustainable growth
y Economic growth and development that meets present needs with
out harming the needs of future generations
y Firms are paying attention to the total
environmental impact throughout the life cycle
of their products
y Life‐cycle analysis is a process of analyzing all inputs and outputs
through the entire life of a product to determine the total
environmental impact of the product
Environmental agendas for the future
y What to do with discarded computers, TV’s, and
cell phones?
y Worldwide there is a question of how to deal with
the issues of
y Water
y Health
y Hygiene
y Safe and renewable energy
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