Question

ETHICS 301 - Business ethics

1. Why is it important that businesspeople study business ethics?

2. Discuss how the three categories of institutions (political, economic, and social) are important in establishing a foundation for normative values.

3. Establishing systems to monitor and enforce ethical standards is an important component of ethics program. Discuss four distinct methods to monitor and enforce ethical standards.

4. What are the benefits of ethics program? Discuss at least four distinct benefits.

5. Define code of ethics and code of conduct, and discuss the difference between the two.

6. Discuss the importance of stakeholder perspective in business ethics. Discuss the steps to implement stakeholder perspective.

Answer 1

1. Business is an activity undertaken with a profit motive but often Businessmen are not inclined towards laying emphasis on moral virtue, human dignity and the common good into their business models, as long they are earning from the society in a steady manner. In this case, to improve the virtues of the Company, the organizational culture needs to be improvised on the basis of business ethics. However, in order to achieve the same, it is also essential for the businesspeople, a business Organization, to study business ethics to apply the same throughout the Organization.

For this, Businesspeople need to undertake various steps in the changing work environment, primarily by establishing ethics in Decision making, formulating Code of Conduct in the Business operations, etc. in accordance with the overall HR policies and issues guiding the Organization as a whole. Moreover, Code of ethics could be incorporated by the Businesspeople in their entity’s HR policies, to govern unethical behavior because the code of ethics shall help these Businesspeople in sorting out the ethical dilemmas. Thus the study of Business ethics also ensure bringing back of moral virtue, human dignity and the common good into our business economic models and vouch the trust of the stakeholders in the running of the Business enterprise, thereby ensuring survival of the same in a long run.