BUSI 1800 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Situational Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Triple Bottom Line
2 May 2018
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BUSI 1800
Chapter 5: Ethics and Social Responsibility
Ethics Is More than Legality:
• Ethis eflet people’s pope elatios ith oe aothe ad how people should treat
others
• Laws are more narrow and are written to protect us from fraud, theft, and violence
• Unethical behaviour may sometimes be legal, but is still unethical
Ethical Standards Are Fundamental:
• Ethics: standards of moral behaviour; that is, behaviour that is accepted by society as
right versus wrong
• Many people practice situational ethics, that is: what is right is whatever works best for
the individual; each person has to work out for him-or herself the difference between
right and wrong
• Basic moral values such as integrity, respect for human life, self-control, honesty,
courage, and self-sacrifice are standard in most cultures
• Cheating, cowardice, and cruelty are universally wrong
Managing Businesses Ethically and Responsibly:
• Businesses should be managed ethically to:
o Maintain a good reputation
o Keep existing customers
o Attract new customers
o Avoid lawsuits
o Reduce employee turnover
o Avoid government intervention
o Please customers, employees, and society
o Do the right thing
Setting Corporate Ethical Standards:
• Compliance-based ethics codes: ethical standards that emphasize preventing unlawful
behaviour by increasing control and by penalizing wrong-doers
• Integrity-based ethics codes: ethial stadads that defie the ogaizatio’s guidig
values, create an environment that supports ethically sound behaviour, and stress
shared accountability among employees
Six Steps to Improve Business Ethics:
1. Top management must adopt and unconditionally support an explicit corporate code of
conduct
2. Employees must understand that expectations for ethical behaviour begin at the top.
3. Ethics must be built into training.
4. An ethics office must be set up.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Managing businesses ethically and responsibly: businesses should be managed ethically to, maintain a good reputation, keep existing customers, attract new customers, avoid lawsuits, reduce employee turnover, avoid government intervention, please customers, employees, and society, do the right thing. Setting corporate ethical standards: compliance-based ethics codes: ethical standards that emphasize preventing unlawful behaviour by increasing control and by penalizing wrong-doers. Integrity-based ethics codes: ethi(cid:272)al sta(cid:374)da(cid:396)ds that defi(cid:374)e the o(cid:396)ga(cid:374)izatio(cid:374)"s guidi(cid:374)g values, create an environment that supports ethically sound behaviour, and stress shared accountability among employees. Protection for whistleblowers: whistleblowers: people who report illegal or unethical behavior, sarbanes-oxley act of 2002 (sox, us legislation that established stronger standards to prevent misconduct, and to ensure the accuracy and reliability of published financial information. It also protects whistleblowers from any company retaliations: there is no national legislation in canada that protects all workers, however, some federal and provincial legislation does protect public service workers.
