Question

"Business ethics is no practical importance to managers. "Debates about right and wrong should be left in the classroom." Critically evaluate this statement using examples where appropriate.

Answer 1

Business ethics have practical importance for managers.
Chief executive officers (CEO's) of large companies deal with
huge amounts of money where there is the temptation
to violate ethics for their own personal gain.
Kenneth Lay, the CEO of Enron an American Energy company based
in Houston, Texas is an example of violation of ethics. The violation
of ethics was that the company was involved in fraudulent accounting during the early 2000's.
Enron's managers and Arthur Anderson, an accounting firm were
misrepresenting financial data. The managers owned shares of the
Enron, and to prevent the value of the stock price from falling the managers
and Arthur Anderson created fraud entities to hide billions of dollars
in losses and liabilities.
What seems like a small manipulation can be a huge violation of ethics resulting
in imprisonment, bankruptcy, and economic losses for society. Managers/CEO's
have to adhere to a code of ethics when they take on the responsibility of billions
of dollars. After the accounting scandal, the Sarbanes Oxley act was passed by the United States government to
prevent such accounting fraud in the future.