Business Legal

Power point Notes-1

1. Business ethics involve: Decision making by people in business according to moral principles or standards.

2. Decision making: is necessary because of conflicting duties, loyalties or interests create moral dilemmas requiring decisions to be made. Ethical decision-making involves the ability to discern right from wrong along with the commitment to do what is right.

3. Factors affecting decision-making: Issue Intensity (i.e. How important does the decision-maker perceive the issue to be? Note that this can be influenced by company/management emphasis). Also The Decision-Maker’s Personal Moral Philosophy, The Decision-Maker’s Stage of Moral Development, and The Organizational Culture,.

4. 8 Steps to Sound, Ethical Decision-Making:

1. Gather as many relevant & material facts as circumstances permit.

2. Identify the relevant ethical issues (consider alt. viewpoints)

3. Identify, weigh & prioritize all the affected parties (i.e. stakeholders)

4. Identify your existing commitments/obligations.

5. Identify various courses of action (dare to think creatively)

6. Identify the possible/probable consequences of same (both short & long-term)

7. Consider the practicality of same.

8. Consider the dictates and impacts upon your own character & integrity.

Disclosure Test: How comfortable would you feel if others, whose opinion of you you valued, knew that you were making that decision?

5. Values: guiding constructs or ideas, representing deeply held generalized behaviors, which are considered by the holder, to be of great significance. A company’s “core values” are “those beliefs and principles that provide the ultimate guide in decision-making.”

6. People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realize. By presuppositions we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, his basic world-view, the grid through...