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1 General definition
Business Ethics is the branch of 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. Those who are interested in business ethics examine various kinds of business activities and ask, "Is the conduct ethically right or wrong?"
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics, a branch of philosophy. As such, it takes the ethical concepts and principles developed at a more theoretical, philsophical level, and applies them to specific business situations. Generally speaking, business ethics is a normative discipline, whereby particular ethical standards are assumed and then applied. It makes specific judgements about what is right or wrong, which is to say, it makes claims about what ought to be done or what ought not to be done. While there are some exceptions, business ethicists are usually less concerned with the foundations of ethics ( metaethics), or with justifying the most basic ethical principles, and are more concerned with practical problems and applications, and any specific duties that might apply to business relationships.
2 Related disciplines
Business ethics is related to the philosophy of business, which deals with the philosophical, political, and ethical underpinnings of business and economics. The philosophy of business deals with matters such as what, if any, are a the social responsibilities of a business; business management theory; theories of individualism vs. collectivism; free will among participants in the marketplace; the role of self interest ; invisible hand theories; the requirements of social justice; and natural rights, especially property rights, in relation to the business enterprise.
Business ethics is also related to political economyPolitical economy was the original term for the study of relations of production, especially between the three main classes of capitalist (or bourgeois) society: capitalists, workers and landowners. In contradistinction to the theory of the physiocrats, i, which is economic analysis from political and historical perspectives. Political economy deals with the distributive consequences of economic actions. It asks who gains and who loses from economic activity, and is the resultant distribution fair or just, which are central ethical issues.
3 Typical issues in business ethics
While hardly exhaustive, some typical issues addressed in business ethics include accounting and financial standards; advertisingAdvertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, by an identified sponsor. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, persona deceptionDeception is providing intentionally misleading information to others. Mimicry: The resememblance, through natural selection, of on organism to another, or to a natural object. Animals often attempt to deceive predators or prey by their appearance or beha; animal rightsAnimal rights is the viewpoint that animals have rights and are worthy of ethical consideration in how humans interact with them. Overview Animal rights is the concept that all or some animals are entitled to possess their own lives, and that animals are (e.g., in agriculture); black marketThe black market is the sector of economic activity in a jurisdiction involving illegal activities. Depending on the sense in which the term is used, this can primarily refer to illegally avoiding tax payments, to the profits of narcotic trafficking, or p sales; bribery and kickbacks; business intelligence and industrial espionage; political contributions; competition versus cooperation; corporate governance; corporate crime; competitive disinformation; creative accounting; discrimination and affirmative action; dumping; employee rights and duties ; environmental issues; hostile take-overs; illicit drug testing; insider trading; fiduciary responsibility; globalism; grey marketing; key employee raiding; labor union strikes and union busting ; marketing, sales, and negotiation techniques; covert marketing research and scientific testing ; negligence; patent and copyright enfringement; payola and kick-backs; planned obsolescence; ponzi schemes; predatory pricing; price discrimination; price fixing); privacy rights of employees and customers; professional conduct ; product churning; product placement; promotions; product liability and product defects ; property rights; pyramid schemes; sex in advertising; sexual harassment; slave and child labour; spamming; hostile take-overs; tax avoidance and tax evasion; telemarketing; tort law; trade secrets; undercover marketing; and whistleblowing.
