Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Unit 14: Business Ethics and Management, Myths and Ambiguity Related to…
-
-
-
-
-
Need for Business Ethics
-
Fair and ethical work culture: Every human being must practice fair, honest and ethical behaviour and should receive similar kind of behaviour. Everyone wants to work in an environment which is fair and ethical in its practices.
Organisational credibility: The organisation that includes a work culture based on moral values is wellrespected in It speaks of proper socialresponsibility initiatives along withgood corporate culture. This belief is accepted all over the world irrespective of the organisation or business.
Binding people: An organisation driven by values is preferred by employees. The values help bind employees and the management amicably.
Improves decision making: The decisions taken by the employees and the management are driven by ethics and values. Ethical business organisations are well respected in the industry, even by their competitors.
Profitable in the long run: Organisations that follow moral values and ethics tend to gain in the long run as they are well respected in the industry for their values,ethics, norms and policies.
Safeguarding public interest: Normally, it is seen that ethics triumphs over the law in safeguarding public interests. Sometimes, the court of law is unable to safeguard society and the environment. Therefore, it is seen that when the law fails, it is the process of ethics that tries to create a sense of right and wrong in It is the ethics that safeguards the interests of the people of the society and it is universally followed all over the world.
THEORIES OF ETHICS
-
1.Meta-ethics: This is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical behaviour, characteristics, statements and judgements. It is concerned with the nature of ethics and the theoretical meaning of ethical principles and morality regarding what is good or bad and right or It is generally concerned with ethics being relative or the conduct of human behaviour.
2.Normative ethics: This deals with norms, values or standards on how one should act. It is mainly concerned with the content on the theory of moral judgements in terms of defining and determining the moral course of action on the basis of what is right or wrong and good or bad. The normative theories generally seek to provide guidelines for determining a specific course of moral action. The main assumption in normative ethics is that every moral conduct has a certain fixed criterion, which could be a single rule or a set of principles.
These ethics can be broadly divided into three theories as follows:
A.Virtue theories: These theories stress the need to have a good mentality and habits and do not lay much stress on the concept of learning.
B.Duty theories: Duty theories, also known as deontological theories, are based on specific objectives of morality and on specific, functional principles of obligation.
The word ‘deon’, is a Greek word and it means ‘duty’, which refers to an obligation or the essence of duty.
C.Consequentialist theories: According to this, we first distinguish between the good and bad consequences
Secondly, we determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are greater, then the action is morally proper. It is natural for us to understand our moral values by taking into account the result of our behaviour and actions.
3. Applied ethics: This art of ethics attempts to deal with the specific domain of human action and to define standards and norms for discussing issues that might arise within those areas. It deals with the philosophical investigation, from a moral viewpoint, of particular issues in private and public life, which are matters of moral Therefore, ethics lays out well-defined standards that impose responsibility to ensure that human beings refrain from any misconduct, which could be harmful to the self as well as to society. :
Teological Approach
Teleological theory is based on the contention that right or wrong actions are based on circumstances and the goodness or badness of their consequences.
The term ‘teleology’ is taken from the Greek word ‘telos’, which means ‘goal’ or ‘end’. Hence, teleology is the study of purpose or goals and is also termed as consequentialist ethics.
-
Ethical egoism: According to ethical egoism, an action is good as long as it results in maximisation of the person’s self-interest as defined by him, even if it is at the expense of others. Ethical egoism talks of morally promoting one’s own At times, keeping aside self-interest could also be morally right.
Utilitarianism: According to the Utilitarianism theory, an action is good if it results in maximum satisfaction of the large number of people who are linked with it and would get affected by the action.
Eudaemonism: According to eudaemonism, an action is good if it results in fulfilling the goals and takes care of the welfare of human beings. If the actions tend to take care of the needs of the people and give them happiness, then it is considered as being useful and productive.
Business Ethics
-
A set of principles or norms that govern the conduct of business at an individual level or at the organisational level.
Raymond C. Baumhart, "the ethics of business is the ethics of responsibility. The businessman must promise that he will not harm knowingly"
Kirk O. Hanson, a renowned ethics expert, "business ethics is the study of the standards of business behaviour, which promote human welfare and the good."
Deontological Approach
In this theory, people adhere to their obligations and duties when engaged in decision making involving ethics. This means that a person will follow his/her sense of duty or commitment to an individual or society since he/she believes that committing his/her duty is ethically right.
The three kinds of deontological theories are shown:
Negative and positive rights theories: In the negative rights theory, an action is right if it protects the individual from harm or unjustifiable interference from other people or the government while exercising his/her right. On the other hand, according to the positive rights theory, an action is right if it provides an individual with anything that he needs to exists.
Social contract theories: According to the social contract theories, people make a commitment with each other to follow the moral and political obligations towards the society in which they live.
Social justice theories: The social justice theories believe that the action will be considered right if it confirms the fairness in the distributive, retributive and compensatory aspects of cost and rewards.
1.Absolution Relativism
Absolutism lays out fixed norms and standards for all people. It is the process of making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules.
The main characteristics of absolutism are:
-
2.The process of absolutism allows moral rules to be evaluated critically so that, inall fairness, the people are treated in the same manner since the rules are the same for everyone.
3.Absolute rules are universal in all cultures and situations. It means that if the rules are honest and principled, then there is no need to have different rules for different people. For example, according to this viewpoint, the acts of murder and stealing are considered totally wrong, irrespective of their circumstances or results.
Ethics refers to a set of moral beliefs and principles that govern the behaviour and activities of a group or an individual in a society.
The word ‘ethics’ is taken from the Greek word ethos which means character, manner, culture and mindset.
In the words of Peter F. Drucker, ethics deals with right actions of individuals.
The systematic analysis of moral standards with the purpose of justifying the way in which they are understood, interpreted and applied on moral issues is known as ethics.
Ethics is a set of moral standards that aligns behaviours within an organisation and the social framework.
-