Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Business ethics is the behavior that a business adheres to in its daily dealings with the world. The ethics of a particular business can be diverse. They apply not only to how the business interacts with the world at large, but also to their one-on-one dealings with a single customer.

Many businesses have gained a bad reputation just by being in business. To some people, businesses are interested in making money, and that is the bottom line. It could be called capitalism in its purest form. Making money is not wrong in itself. It is the manner in which some businesses conduct themselves that brings up the question of ethical behavior.

If a company does not adhere to business ethics and breaks the laws, they usually end up being fined. Many companies have broken anti-trust, ethical and environmental laws and received fines worth millions. The problem is that the amount of money these companies are making outweighs the fines applied. Billion dollar profits blind the companies to their lack of business ethics, and the dollar sign wins.

The point of special attraction even not only in the world of business but also among consumers has recently become ethics of sales and marketing. Marketing may seek to manipulate our values and behavior. To some extent society regards this as acceptable, but where is the ethical line to be drawn? It is considered unethical when a company makes use of price discrimination, anti-competitive practices, pyramid scheme, spam (electronic), marketing in schools, black or grey markets, false advertising. Ethics of production deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and production processes do not cause harm. Its main issues are pollution, environmental ethics, genetically modified food, mobile phone radiation and health. Ethics of intellectual property states that knowledge and skills are valuable but not easily "ownable" as objects and focuses on the issues of patent, copyright and trademark infringement, biopiracy and industrial espionage. Ethics of accounting information regards misleading financial analysis, bribery, facilitation payments, accounting scandals and other criminal manipulation of the financial markets. Ethics of human resource management (HRM) covers those ethical issues arising around the employer-employee relationship, such as the rights and duties owed between employer and employee: discrimination issues such as those on the basis of age (ageism), gender, race, religion, disabilities, occupational safety and health.

Can a business be socially responsible? If it can be then what criteria does it need to ensure that it is perceived in this manner? For each business it must be a different measure. After all, each business is trying to reach different goals. Fortunately, nowadays most theorists and businessmen contend that a business has moral duties that extend well beyond serving the interests of its owners or stockholders, and that these duties consist of more than simply obeying the law. They believe a business has moral responsibilities to so-called stakeholders, people who have an interest in the conduct of the business, which might include employees, customers, vendors, the local community, or even society as a whole.

Sources: http://www.wisegeek.com,http://en.wikipedia.org.

Date: 2015-10-18; view: 536; Нарушение авторских прав