Business Ethics Issues

Business Ethics Issues

Introduction

The word “ethics” is about knowing what is right and wrong, it's a combination of self-consciousness and following what is “right” and not what is “wrong” if we say “business ethics” this is about doing business in an ethical way which involves being fair, environmentally friendly and not being corrupt or making a profit in any way that has a negative impact on the world or people themselves. Business ethics has been defined as “the rules of conduct by which business decisions are made” and these rules of conduct can sometimes relate to business issues which are concerned in today's world such as child labor for example. Other individuals have stated that business ethics is defined as “the application of ethical values to business behavior.”

Discussion

Ethics in business environment or simply the business ethics is a kind of professional or applied ethics that deals with the observance of moral values and ethical principles and ethical problems that arise in business environment. Business ethics encompasses almost every aspect of business conduct and it also deals with the individual conduct in relation to the organization. The term business ethics has a broad application with both normative and descriptive dimensions; it normative in nature when pursued as career specialisation or corporate practice but it becomes descriptive when it is being learned and understood in academics. Today, the variety of ethical issues reflects the relation of profit-making and profit-maximising endeavours with non-commercial and non-economic concerns. Business ethics has attracted widespread interest in the late 20th century and now it is being pursued rigorously both in corporations and in academia. In today's world, most of the major corporations promote their dedication to non-commercial values such as social responsibilities and code of ethics (Shaw, 2008, pp. 311-326). In academia, too, the field has attained a status of a discipline and specialised courses are taught in business schools all around the world. Governments employ different rules and laws to direct businesses to operate in ethical manner and there also formal organisations for the promotion and implementation of ethical values in corporate world. Bu there are certain areas of business behaviour that lie beyond the control of governments and that are only regulated implicitly by ethics. The emergence of multinational and large business entities with limited or no concern for the societies in which they operate is one of the major reasons behind the development of various ethics regimes.

The study of business ethics has helped identify many ethical issues and problems including rights and responsibilities of the employer and employees, the rights and duties in relation to suppliers, customer, shareholders and communities which host the business. There are other issues that mainly concerns with the relations between different corporations such as takeovers. Other issues related to the interaction of corporations with the society and governments include corporate social entrepreneurship, corporate governance and legal issues.

Business ethics is presently a topic of prime importance and debates and theories related to the business ethics have been and continue ...