Business Ethics: Some Theoretical Issues

Lluka, Valon (2010): Business Ethics: Some Theoretical Issues.

Abstract

Ethics can be defined as a process of evaluating actions according to moral principal of values. Throughout the centuries people were trying to choose between profit and moral. Perhaps, some of them obtain both, but every time it could have roused ethical issues. Those issues concern fairness, justice, rightness or wrongness; as a result it can only be resolved according to ethical standards.

Setting the ethical standards for the way of doing business in corporation is primarily task of management. Corporations have to maintain the same standards as an individual person and, in addition, corporations, as organizational units, have their own social responsibilities toward customers, employees and society. However, any business should keep its original purpose of functioning - making profit. Balancing the traditional standards of profitability and burden of social responsibilities is not an easy task. In recent years it has been a trend of setting standards of corporate ethics according to high degree of morale.

The central inquiry in this paper is to determine what difference it makes if businesses in a community act ethically or ignore ethics. Since business is the subject, our inquiry centers on money – a value highly appreciated in the U.S., as well as in varying degrees in other countries; ethics is often ignored when faced with the possibility of earning or acquiring large sums of money.

The purpose of this paper is to examine ethics and the various ethical problems which business faces in the hope of increasing our understanding. To the extent knowledge is increased, if it appears that more ethical conduct is desirable, we will consider ways to develop more ethical conduct in business.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Business ethics, profit, moral values, social responsibility, ethical issues, ethical standards, fairness, justice, rightness, wrongness
• Subjects: M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M1 - Business Administration > M14 - Corporate Culture ; Diversity ; Social Responsibility; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q50 - General; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M1 - Business Administration; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M1 - Business Administration > M10 - General

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