Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Can ethical behavior really exist in business Research Paper
Can ethical behavior really exist in business - Research Paper Example This paper is an attempt to analyse the concept of ethical behaviour and focus on the possibilities for ethical behaviour to exist in a business. The meaning of business ethics An attempt to answer the following question could help us to understand the meaning of business ethics: What is the relationship between ethics and morality? According to Archie B. Carroll and Ann K. Buchholtz ââ¬Å"ethics is the discipline that deals with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. Ethics can also be regarded as a set of moral principles or values. Morality is a doctrine or system of moral conductâ⬠(Carroll & Buchholtz 242). It is obvious from the definitions that ethics and morality are more or less similar concepts and both these terminologies can be used as substitutes for each other to analyse the right and wrong behaviour in business. Business ethics could thus be observed as linked with the right and wrong behaviour and practices which take place in a business setup. The existence of a business is dependant on the nature of relationship between customers, employees, investors, shareholders, managers and directors. It is the responsibility of director board of a company to ensure the functioning of the organisation in a legal and ethical manner. ... Recent interpretations of right and wrong comprise questions of equity and fairness. There are two important branches of ethics; descriptive ethics and normative ethics. These branches observe the concept of ethics from different angles. As Archie B. Carroll and Ann K. Buchholtz puts in ââ¬Å"descriptive ethics is concerned with describing, characterizing and studying the morality the people, an organisation, a culture or a society. It also compares and contrasts different moral codes, systems, practices, beliefs and valuesâ⬠(Carroll & Buchholtz 242). The focus of descriptive business ethics is primarily on what is taking place in specific areas such as behaviour, action, decisions and practices of organisations. It considers the present happenings in a business establishment and therefore there are possibilities for the development of an attitude among some people to follow the activities of a majority even if the action is unfair. At this point one could recognise the import ance of normative business ethics as it focus on ââ¬Ëwhat aught to beââ¬â¢ instead of ââ¬Ëwhat isââ¬â¢ the ethical conditions of an organisation. According to Archie B. Carroll and Ann K. Buchholtz ââ¬Å"normative ethics, by contrast, is concerned with supplying and justifying a coherent moral system of thinking and judging. It seeks to uncover, develop and justify basic moral principles that are indented to guide behaviour, actions and decisionsâ⬠(Carroll & Buchholtz 242). Therefore normative ethics provides a clear cut idea regarding what is ethical and what is unethical in a business. It is more concerned with the doââ¬â¢s and donââ¬â¢ts and with setting up of standards for providing guidelines for a business establishment to ensure its ethical functioning which is
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