The less direct the impact, the more likely the stakeholder is to use consequentialist considerations to just the actions of managers. For example, government did not react to the need for improved governance and pass Sarbanes-Oxley until after multiple scandals had occurred. Millions of Americans lost money and faith in the financial system was eroded, threatening further harm. If the scandals had not resulted in outcomes so severe, it is unlikely that SOX would ever have been dreamed up.
Given the emphasis on consequentialist assessment, the onus on managers is therefore to fully assess society's reaction to the expected outcomes of their actions. This works mainly when managers properly assess the expected outcomes -- something the likes of Kenneth Lay and Bernard Ebbers did not do. These outcomes must consider the impacts on the gamut of stakeholders. Ethical problems occur when there is goal conflict between the stakeholder groups (Heath, 2006). For example, the decision to develop an environmentally sensitive piece of land weighs the mutually exclusive outcomes, one of which is negative to, for example, endangered species; the other negative to workers who otherwise would be unemployed and in poverty. In such situations, there is little a manager can do other than to rephrase the question such that another outcome is possible, something that is not always possible.
One of the most contentious issues in business ethics is that of ethics within the context of international business. Given that ethical standards are inconsistent within our own communities, expanding the scope of operations internationally inevitably increases the complexity of ethical decision making in business. There are several contentious issues. One is the application of home country ethics to foreign countries, or vice versa. Firms such as Nike have run into controversy in North America, for example, for working conditions in overseas facilities. The wages and conditions in question were superior to the average in the region of production, but inferior to those in North America. Cross-cultural ethical conflict is an area that emerges when a firm goes international with its operations.
The complexity of ethical conflicts would seem to encourage companies to take a more deontological approach to ethical decision-making. After all, in most countries the law reflects the ethical standards of the region. This, however, is only in the long-run, because of a couple of limitations. One is information -- the general public that sets the norms does not always know what the managers are doing. When they do, they compel government to act (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley). Indeed, the ethical norms in the United States did not change after the scandals leading up to SOX, the public was simply unaware of the activity of the managers in question. In international business, the deontological approach again fails to provide foolproof guidance. This is especially the case where democracy is limited or non-existent. A government may control the laws regarding the conditions under which factory workers travail, but the those laws may not at all reflect the ethical norms of the country, especially under dictatorship. Once again, managers are left searching for a resolution to ethical conflict.
All of these dimensions lend complexity to the issue of business ethics. Theorists today cannot agree on any singular approach to the issue, arguing the above points of agency theory, stakeholder theory and adherence to the law as ethics (Ibid).
Improving Business Ethics
While the lack of a singular, defining approach to the issue of business ethics may seem to obfuscate the issue, it could be argued that having so many different ways of addressing the issue improves managers' abilities to enhance ethical decision-making within their organization by giving them a wider range of tools to use.
Most companies begin with an ethics program. Merely having an ethics program does not mean that the company or its managers will behave ethically, and indications are that incidences of ethical lapse have not waned since corporations began adopting ethics programs en masse in the late 1990s (Donaldson, 2000). However, having such a program is a signal of intent, and provides a modicum of guidance upon which the company will need to follow up. The ethics program should ideally define ethics in a manner beyond the basic legal framework. It is understood that companies expect their employees to act within the boundaries of law and the issue of corporate ethics should ultimately be focused on moving beyond that.
Training and communication are key to most corporate ethics programs. The firm's ethical standards are devised and communicated to the employees. This is crucial, because a substantial proportion of ethical lapses occur not at the executive level but at the middle and lower management levels. These managers are faced with ethical conflicts that stem from a lack of guidance from above. They feel that they must act as agents for the shareholders and make poor ethical decisions as a result of not knowing the consequences of their actions. Moreover, it is through these individuals that the corporation's ethical standards are disseminated and reinforced throughout...
In that regard, even the protections available in more sophisticated societies cannot prevent major governmental corruption, exploitation, or unethical business practices in the private sector. Therefore, the prospect of expanding our company presence to Kava does not obligate us to become more directly involved in Kava government or politics, but it does impose an obligation on our part to encourage the most beneficial organizational values and practices at every level.
The treatment of the undocumented workers has legal and economic implications, but is only an issue in the political arena. Companies that hire illegal immigrants are being socially responsible. The argument that illegals suppress wages is not based on sound evidence - the jobs illegals do would otherwise be unfilled. If anything, hiring illegals is socially responsible because it gives those people an opportunity to better themselves, something they otherwise
Ironically, the single most important thing a university could do might be to suspend all forms of grading by the traditional test methods. Even without cheating, the focus on grades only encourages studying to perform on test instead of learning for the sake of learning. It might not be practical for large classes, but one-on-one oral exams between students and professors or TAs might be more difficult to cheat on
Ethics Statement I base my personal ethics on the rights and responsibilities lens from the Four Ethical Lenses. This lens focuses on the key questions such as: What rules and duties must we follow? And What rights are relevant? This standard of ethics is rooted in deontological ethics, where our actions are guided by our sense of right and wrong, and that sense is in turn guided by society's standards. Consider the aspect
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