A Description of Business Ethics
Business Ethics
Some people say that ethics do not have anything to do with business. Others say that businesses have moral obligations that go beyond just functioning according the law and doing what is best for the company and its shareholders. Business ethics examines ethical principles, ethical problems and obligations that apply to people doing business. Companies have the obligation to ensure that their actions cause as little harm as possible to the environment, society and employees. It is difficult to say what is ethical and what is not in business world since ethics can be examined from many different perspectives. Employees, excecutives and society can have a different opinion of what is ethical. This can lead to conflicts of interest where the company has to decide whose ethichal guidelines to follow.
Especially multinational companies face many ethical problems when operating in a foreign country and culture. Then the company has to consider weather to act according to law of their country of origin or to obey the laws of the country where they do business in or manufacture products. If a company for example adopts environmental standards of a certain country in which they produce also those standards are not as high as the standards of the corporation home country, but still according to local law. Then this behaviour is ethical but still not acceptable from a social responsible view. Usually it is easier to obey the laws of production country, since they have less strickt laws and lower minimum wages.
Etch-A-Sketch Ethics
One of the biggest ethical problems companies face nowadays is the outsourcing of production to a low-wage country in order to cut costs. Big companies move production from their own country to a less developed country leaving old employees unemployed. The company usually hires a subcontractor in the country they move production to and let them handle the practical things. Unfortunately in most cases the way the
Some people say that ethics do not have anything to do with business. Others say that businesses have moral obligations that go beyond just functioning according the law and doing what is best for the company and its shareholders. Business ethics examines ethical principles, ethical problems and obligations that apply to people doing business. Companies have the obligation to ensure that their actions cause as little harm as possible to the environment, society and employees. It is difficult to say what is ethical and what is not in business world since ethics can be examined from many different perspectives. Employees, excecutives and society can have a different opinion of what is ethical. This can lead to conflicts of interest where the company has to decide whose ethichal guidelines to follow.
Especially multinational companies face many ethical problems when operating in a foreign country and culture. Then the company has to consider weather to act according to law of their country of origin or to obey the laws of the country where they do business in or manufacture products. If a company for example adopts environmental standards of a certain country in which they produce also those standards are not as high as the standards of the corporation home country, but still according to local law. Then this behaviour is ethical but still not acceptable from a social responsible view. Usually it is easier to obey the laws of production country, since they have less strickt laws and lower minimum wages.
Etch-A-Sketch Ethics
One of the biggest ethical problems companies face nowadays is the outsourcing of production to a low-wage country in order to cut costs. Big companies move production from their own country to a less developed country leaving old employees unemployed. The company usually hires a subcontractor in the country they move production to and let them handle the practical things. Unfortunately in most cases the way the