BUSINESS ETHICS

Business Ethics

Business ethics

Introduction

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a global investment banking - and trading company with headquarters in New York. Goldman Sachs is primarily a financial services for large corporations and institutional investors active, with a little one branch exists for wealthy private clients. The company Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. alleged of leaking out the insider information. In this paper, we will discuss the different aspects related to this case, and analyse the fact that whether or not company was guilty of doing so.

Thesis Statement

The virtue ethics that Goldman Sachs embrace, in order to produce the greatest happiness in the long can be said to be questionable.

Discussion

The gray areas from which the company Goldman Sachs profited exemplified by the real-estate market and the subprime-mortgage collapse: Goldman Sachs sold subprime-mortgage investments to its clients for years, but then in 2006 began trading against subprime on its own balance sheet without informing its clients, a hedge that eventually let it profit when the real-estate market cratered. For some, this was a prescient call; for others, a glaring conflict of interest and inherently dishonest, since the firm let its clients take the fall. Goldman's penchant for playing all sides has been business as usual for years, but no one paid much attention—partly because the economy was booming and there seemed to be plenty of profit to go around. What once seemed like ruthless laissez-faire capitalism now looks like a rigged market in which Goldman Sachs has far too much control (Farzad, 2010).

On the other hand, analyzing the acts of the company through the ethical model, it can be said that Goldman Sachs appears to embrace a virtue ethics (fulfilled or fruitful lives) and seems to feel that a life of virtue and moderation will produce the greatest happiness in the long run. While this may be true, the 'happiness' in question probably cannot be equated with utility - or at least with utility in its Benthamite form. Judged solely in pleasure-pain terms, that is, Goldman's argument is questionable (Mark, 2008). Business ethics in the workplace should aim at lesson values for the workplace and double-check that behavior is in line with the uniform lesson values. More times than not, enterprise ethics glimpsed as a way to determine the conflicts in which one alternative seems to be the obvious answer. Although, ethical dilemmas that most managers faced with are more real-to-life and will most often be convoluted with no definite slash guidelines. People faced with ethical decisions each and every day (Mark, 2008).

The affected of the Goldman Gray areas included investments banks that badly hit in the face of global financial crisis. The impact of Goldmans strategies caused dislocation of U.S. estate market influencing the financial sector also caused misery to the financial markets. Investment banking greatly depended on financial innovation for its services base. Hence, the industry underwent major changes followed by the financial crisis 2008. Unfortunately, the global economic crunch led to the end of the era of stand-alone Wall Street ...