Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Business ethics guides people to practice commerce professionally and honestly and in a way that permits as many as possible to flourish. However, as we have seen,…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Besides culture, the other major influence in the development of business ethics is the passage of time. Ethical standards do not remain fixed; they transform in response…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: It has been said that English is the language of money and, for that reason, has become the language of business, finance, trade, communication, and travel. As…
Figure 5.1 Business ethics do not exist in a vacuum. They are a reflection of the underlying values of a society and the way society lives out those values over time. This experience is captured in language, culture, religious traditions, and modes…
Corporate Law and Corporate Responsibility While some argue that corporations have a primary duty to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders, others assert that businesses have a duty to the society in which they operate, a duty that serves…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Ideally, all levels of government—local, state, and federal—should work with each other and with private-sector businesses to accomplish a fair and rational balance between their respective roles…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Public concern for the natural environment is a relatively new phenomenon, dating from the 1960s and Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring, published in 1962. In 1992, Cormac Cullinan’s Wild Law proposed…
Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Corporate law, which enables businesses to take advantage of a legal structure that separates liability from ownership and control, was introduced in most states in the nineteenth…
Figure 4.1 The Japanese concept of nemawashi broadly means “laying the groundwork” or “building strong roots.” In a business ethics context, nemawashi means building a strong foundation for an action or project by reaching out to all stakeholders and seeking their input, demonstrating how much the…
Adopting a Stakeholder Orientation An organization has duties and responsibilities with regard to each stakeholder; however, the implicit social contract between business and society means that meeting legal requirements might support only minimal ethical standards. Society on the whole and…