BUSINESS ETHICS

BUSINESS ETHICS

Introduction

Business or corporate ethics are described as a type of professional or applied ethics that scrutinize the principles of ethics and ethical or moral problems that are may occur in a professional or business environment. The ethics are applicable to every area of business function and are relevant to the functioning and behavior of the entire organizations and individuals in them (Smith, 1952).

The ethics in the business world have the dimensions, the descriptive as well as normative. With respect to the practices of the corporate sector and the specialization of career, this field is normative primarily. The individuals on the academics side attempt to know and understand the behavior in business use descriptive methods. The quantity and different ranges of the business issues (ethical) mirror the link between the noneconomic issues and the concern of profit maximizing behavior. The interest in the study of business or corporate ethics increased amazingly during the time period from 1980s to 1990s; in both the areas of academics and corporations. In today's time, the Governments utilize the laws and different regulations to direct behaviors of business in what they believe are profitable. On the other hand, where governmental laws cannot reach, ethics regulates such areas and behaviors completely.

The development of business ethics increase when large companies emerge in the world, these corporations have limited relationships and are sensitive to the societies where they work and operate. Be any area or walk of life, ethics play a vital role and individuals and leaders are judge on the basis of them. The role of a leader is important as he / she is the one who help regulates the behavior and characteristics of the organizations and individuals in them.

Discussion

Business ethics indicate that things should be communicated honestly without any distortion or alteration of the information. It is the duty of the leader or the management to ensure the compliance of ethics in the business processes and the adherence of them by everyone at all levels (Smith, 1952).

Concealing the Truth

The case study under consideration highlights the fact that the army officers conceal the real reason behind the death of the subject officer. The questions are they justified in doing that? Is it against the ethics? Should truth be the important thing all the times? Was USA political and foreign image was more important than the truth being told?

According to business ethics it is imperative to state the honest thing at all times. In this case, the army officers hide the actual condition in which the soldier died and what transpired before and after that. In order to improve the foreign image and gain the sympathy and increase the patriotism for America, such measures were taken. They were more concerned with how things look instead of how things should be handled or what is the demands of the work ethics and their compliance (Colle, 2007).

They should have stated the fact, i.e., the soldier died in friendly fire instead of distorting it into an act of patriotism ...