Type Of Business Ethics

HONESTY
Ethical executives are honest and truthful in all their dealings and they do not deliberately mislead or
deceive others by misrepresentations, overstatements, partial truths, selective omissions, or any other
means.

INTEGRITY
Ethical executives demonstrate personal integrity and the courage of their convictions by doing what
they think is right even when there is great pressure to do otherwise.

PROMISE-KEEPING & TRUSTWORTHINESS.

Ethical executives are worthy of trust. They are candid and forthcoming in supplying relevant
information and correcting misapprehensions of fact, and they make every reasonable effort to fulfill
the letter and spirit of their promises and commitments. They do not interpret agreements in an
unreasonably technical or legalistic manner in order to rationalize non-compliance or create
justifications for escaping their commitments.

LOYALTY
Ethical executives are worthy of trust, demonstrate fidelity and loyalty to persons and institutions by
friendship in adversity, support and devotion to duty; they do not use or disclose information learned in
confidence for personal advantage. They safeguard the ability to make independent professional
judgments by scrupulously avoiding undue influences and conflicts of interest. They are loyal to their
companies and colleagues and if they decide to accept other employment, they provide reasonable
notice, respect the proprietary information of their former employer, and refuse to engage in any
activities that take undue advantage of their previous positions.

FAIRNESS
Ethical executives and fair and just in all dealings; they do not exercise power arbitrarily, and do not use
overreaching nor indecent means to gain or maintain any advantage nor take undue advantage of
another’s mistakes or difficulties. Fair persons manifest a commitment to justice, the equal treatment of
individuals, tolerance for and acceptance of diversity, the they are open-minded; they are willing to
admit they are wrong and, where appropriate, change their positions and beliefs.

CONCERN FOR OTHERS

Ethical executives are caring, compassionate, benevolent and kind; they like the Golden Rule, help those
in need, and seek to accomplish their business objectives in a manner that causes the least harm and
the greatest positive good.

RESPECT FOR OTHERS

Ethical executives demonstrate respect for the human dignity, autonomy, privacy, rights, and interests
of all those who have a stake in their decisions; they are courteous and treat all people with equal
respect and dignity regardless of sex, race or national origin.

LAW ABIDING
Ethical executives abide by laws, rules and regulations relating to their business activities.

COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE
Ethical executives pursue excellence in performing their duties, are well informed and prepared, and
constantly endeavor to increase their proficiency in all areas of responsibility.

LEADERSHIP
Ethical executives are conscious of the responsibilities and opportunities of their position of leadership
and seek to be positive ethical role models by their own conduct and by helping to create an
environment in which principled reasoning and ethical decision making are highly prized.

REPUTATION AND MORALE

Ethical executives seek to protect and build the company’s good reputation and the morale of its
employees by engaging in no conduct that might undermine respect and by taking whatever actions are
necessary to correct or prevent inappropriate conduct of others.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Ethical executives acknowledge and accept personal accountability for the ethical quality of their
decisions and omissions to themselves, their colleagues, their companies, and their communities.

Approaches Of Business Ethics

TELEOLOGICAL APPROACH
Also known as consequentiality approach, it determines the moral conduct on the basis of the
consequences of an activity. Whether an action is right or wrong would depend upon the judgement
about the consequences of such an action. The idea is to judge the action moral if it delivers more good
than harm to society.

For example, not paying the money to someone whom you owe may make you happy but it disrupts the
social system of fairness and equity thus making the society as a whole unhappy. Accordingly, this would
not be considered as a Similarly, a party who breaks a contract may be happy because it is beneficial to
it, but it would damage the society’s legal framework for conducting business in an orderly fashion.
Hence, it would not be an ethical act.

Deontological approach
While a “teleologist” focuses on doing what will maximize societal welfare, a “deonotologist” focuses an
doing what is “right” based an his moral principles. Accordingly, some actions would be considered
wrong even if the consequences of these actions were good. According to DeGeorge:

“The deonotological approach is built upon the premise that “duty” is the basic moral category and that
the duty is independent of the consequences. An action is right if it has certain characteristics or is of a
certain kind and wrong if it has other characteristics or is of another kind”.

This approach has more of a religious undertone. The ethical code of conduct has been dictated by the
Holy Scriptures. The wrongs and rights have been defined by the word of God. This gives the concept of
ethics a fixed perception. Since the word of God is considered as permanent and unchangeable, so then
is the concept of ethics.
Emotive approach
This approach is proposed by A.J. Ayer. He suggests that morals and ethics are just the personal
viewpoints and “moral judgements are meaningless expressions of emotions.” The concept of morality
is personal in nature and only reflects a person’s emotions.

This means that if a person feels good about an act, then in his view, it is a moral act. For example, using
loopholes to cheat on income tax may be immoral from societal point of view, but the person filing the
income tax returns sees nothing wrong with it.

Moral-rights approach
This approach views behavior as respecting and protecting fundamental human rights, equal treatment
under law and so on. Some of these rights are set forth in documents such as Bill of Rights in America
and U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. From ethical point of view, people expect that their health and
safety is not endangered by unsafe products.

They have a right not to be intentionally deceived on matters which should be truthfully disclosed to
them. Citizens have a fundamental right to privacy and violation of such privacy would not be morally
justifiable.

Individuals have the right to object and reject directives that violate their moral or religious beliefs. For
example, Sikhs are allowed to wear turbans instead of putting on a hat as required by Royal Canadian
Police, because of their religious beliefs.

Justice approach
The justice view of moral behavior is based on the belief that ethical decisions do not discriminate
people on the basis of any types of preferences, but treat all people fairly, equitably and impartially,
according to established guiding rules and standards. All mankind is created equal and discriminating
against any one on the basis of race, gender, religion, nationality or any such criteria would be
considered unethical.