Business Ethics

Business ethics is a form of the art of applied ethics that examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial context, the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting, and any special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce.

Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values. Historically, interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations and within academia. For example, today most major corporate websites lay emphasis on commitment to promoting non-economic social values under a variety of headings (e.g. ethics codes, social responsibility charters). In some cases, corporations have redefined their core values in the light of business ethic[edit] Overview of issues in business ethics

[edit] General business ethics

* This part of business ethics overlaps with the philosophy of business, one of the aims of which is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company.

* Corporate social responsibility or CSR: an umbrella term under which the ethical rights and duties existing between companies and society is debated. .

* Ethical issues concerning relations between different companies: e.g. hostile take-overs, industrial espionage.

* Leadership issues: corporate governance.

* Political contributions made by corporations.

* Law reform, such as the ethical debate over introducing a crime of corporate manslaughter.

* The misuse of corporate ethics policies as marketing instruments.[4]

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[edit] Professional ethics

Professional ethics covers the myriad of practical ethical problems and phenomena which arise out of specific functional areas of companies or in relation to recognized business professions.

[edit] Ethics of accounting information

* Creative accounting, earnings management, misleading financial analysis.

* Insider trading, securities fraud, bucket shop, forex scams: concerns (criminal) manipulation of the financial markets.

* Executive compensation: concerns excessive payments made to corporate CEO's.

* Bribery, kickbacks, facilitation payments: while these may be in the (short-term) interests of the company and its shareholders, these practices may be anti-competitive or offend against the values of society.

[edit] Ethics of human resource management

The 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 include discrimination on the bases of age (ageism), gender, race, religion, disabilities, weight and attractiveness. See also: affirmative action, sexual harassment.

* Issues surrounding the representation of employees and the democratization of the workplace: union busting, strike breaking.

* Issues affecting the privacy of the employee: workplace surveillance, drug testing. See also: privacy.

* Issues affecting the privacy of the employer: whistle-blowing.

* Issues relating to the fairness of the employment contract and the balance of power between employer and employee: slavery,[5] indentured servitude, employment law.

* Occupational safety and health.

[edit] Ethics of sales and marketing

Marketing which goes beyond the mere provision of information about (and access to) a product may seek to manipulate our values and behaviour. To some extent society regards this as acceptable, but where is the ethical line to be drawn? Marketing ethics overlaps strongly with media ethics, because marketing makes heavy use of media. However, media ethics is a much larger topic and extends outside business ethics.

* Pricing: price fixing, price discrimination, price skimming.

* Anti-competitive practices: these include but go beyond pricing tactics to cover issues such as manipulation of loyalty and supply chains. See: anti-competitive practices, antitrust law.

* Specific marketing strategies: greenwash, bait and switch, shill, viral marketing, spam (electronic), pyramid scheme, planned obsolescence.

* Children and marketing: marketing in schools.

* Black markets, grey markets. .

[edit] Ethics of production

This area of business ethics deals with the duties of a company to ensure that products and production processes do not cause harm. Some of the more acute dilemmas in this area arise out of the fact that there is usually a degree of danger in any product or production process and it is difficult to define a degree of permissibility, or the degree of permissibility may depend on the changing state of preventative technologies or changing social perceptions of acceptable risk.

* Defective, addictive and inherently dangerous products and services (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, weapons, motor vehicles, chemical manufacturing, bungee jumping).

* Ethical relations between the company and the environment: pollution, environmental ethics, carbon emissions trading

* Ethical problems arising out of new technologies: genetically modified food, mobile phone radiation and health.

* Product testing ethics: animal rights and animal testing, use of economically disadvantaged groups (such as students) as test objects. .

[edit] Ethics of intellectual property, knowledge and skills

Knowledge and skills are valuable but not easily "ownable" objects. Nor is it obvious who has the greater rights to an idea: the company who trained the employee or the employee themselves? The country in which the plant grew, or the company which discovered and developed the plant's medicinal potential? As a result,