Identifying Ethical Business Conduct Is Really Easy, but Engaging in Ethical Business Is Very Hard

LEGT2712: Business ethics and the Law

Take home project

Question 1: “Identifying ethical business conduct is really easy, but engaging in ethical business is very hard.” Zumbo, 2013

(a) Ethical business conduct

Recently, more and more business highly emphasized the importance of ethical conduct. The growing concern for the environment, unfair trading, discrimination among employers and employees, the prohibition of child labor, the rise in ethics education all indicates that concern over business ethics is becoming significant in our society.

When a business and its employees performed in a consistent way that the society and the individuals considered as professional and morally responsible, it will be deemed as ethical business conduct. Some key moral principles have to include during the conduct, which are honesty, fairness, equality, dignity, diversity and individual rights respectively. Business ethics is the behavior that a business adheres to on its daily dealings with the world. Ethics can be diverse that business not only applies when dealings with the world at large, they also apply even when dealing with a single customer.

Some business may primarily focus on capitalism, which aims at making money, and result in a bad impression by just being in business. Making money is not a bad thing itself since every business does. However, as society starts to emphasize on ethics conduct, businesses nowadays have to take it into account as well. A good business ethics conduct should be exist in every part of the business.

(b) Arguments For: Seeking to promote ethical business conduct

By engaging in ethic conducts, a company can indicate itself as a social responsible company which helps gaining a competitive advantage. Comparatively, customers are more willing to invest or consume in ethical brands and remain loyal to them, despite the poor financial performance of the company. Tylenol faced a tremendous crisis in 1982. There were seven...