The Business Ethics Blog

Building and maintaining trust in our business relationships and pursuing the highest standards of ethical behavior remain a fundamental aspect of our company’s core values. While I remain uncertain as to whether the beneficiary of an action bears any responsibility for the ethics of that action , it seems clearer that a party who has input into a decision bears some degree of responsibility for the influence they have over the decision-maker. All operations and business activities are assessed for risks related to corruption, and internal audits are conducted on a periodic basis to assess compliance with the Anti-Corruption Policy. According to the dictionary, the term ethics has a variety of different meanings.

Students are able to make a critical reflection on the role of theology as indispensable tool for unmasking the hidden religious dimensions of business (for example: in advertising, creed/code/cult thinking) as well as its positive role as source of insights about leadership in business (for example: the link between spirituality and business). Customers to a business are those who purchase the products or services of that business.

Not accountable in a legalistic way; accountable in a social way that comes with the feeling that people around you area aware of your behaviour. To the extent that it makes sense—and it often does, he believes—to assign responsibility for the harm, it must be assigned to the firm itself. One case against Bear Stearns indicates that its employees put troubled mortgages into securitization trusts that it sold to customers, while simultaneously receiving reimbursement — known as apology payments — from the companies that originated the loans.

That is to say that a first-level priority of one party (their immediate need) is at best a third-level priority when the consequences to them is made by someone else (presuming they value their social connection to another party). Thus this seems to be an argument that, carried to it logical conclusion, is also a criticism of the vision of the internet promulgated by Facebook (and Google) of a virtual environment of near constant social networking married to marketing.

What a business person can learn from a philosopher is the need to be able to explain and justify what it is that their particular corporation is doing. As long as there are producers out there like DeCoster – who seems to think of fines as merely another cost of doing business – I suspect the FDA’s efforts will be insufficient. A business also should strive to enhance local community service and also facilitate better living conditions for its employers.