Contemporary issues in Organisational Practice Revision
Ethics
* Business Ethics simply means good behaviour and only applies to private businesses and not public sector businesses. * The term ethics means treating other people with respect, in general it means what we ought to act towards others. * Ethics is a broad term which includes concepts such as Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility. * Often the issues which arises under “Business Ethics” relate to ethical behaviour of businesses overseas in poorer countries. The main issues are: Bribery of foreign officials, corruption, human rights violations in newly industrialising countries (sweatshops) and environmental pollution of host countries. * It is sometimes argued that ethics is nothing to do with business, acting ethically is only justified if it promotes the organisations best interest (Profit and the share price). * Ivan Boesky defines “Greed is Healthy”. * The whole point about business is profit and beating the competition. If you worry about ethics and social good then the business will end up failing. * Others argue that a business has a moral duty to take into account the effect of their actions. * Huge multi-national corporations control billions of pounds and they are often shown to be as rich as the countries they operate in. They need to be careful to avoid pollution in their operations and exploitative “sweatshop” labour. * Multi-national corporations also need to take into account the huge negative and positive following the ventures they undertake and the contracts in which they make. * It can be argued that unethical behaviour by Multi-national corporations harms the reputation of their “home” countries. * Corporate unethical behaviour is also bad for the reputation and self-esteem of the employees of the company. Also