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Samenvatting Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability, prof Devooght Kurt slides + eigen notities
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InhoudsopgaveChapter 1: Ethics and Business ........................................................................................................... 1
Why is ethics important in business environment? .......................................................................... 2
Personal integrity & Social responsibility ......................................................................................... 3
Ethics and the Law .......................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2: Ethical decision making ..................................................................................................... 6
When ethical decision making goes wrong ...................................................................................... 9
Ethical decision making in managerial roles................................................................................... 10
Chapter 3: Philosophical ethics and business (elaboration step 5) ................................................... 11
Ethical frameworks ....................................................................................................................... 12
Utilitarianism ............................................................................................................................ 13
Principle-based ......................................................................................................................... 14
Virtue ethics.............................................................................................................................. 17
Human rights (duties & social justice & legal rights) ...................................................................... 15
Chapter 4: Corporate culture............................................................................................................ 19
Corporate culture.......................................................................................................................... 20
Culture & ethics ............................................................................................................................ 22
Key components to creating an effective culture ....................................................................... 22
Compliance & values-based cultures ............................................................................................. 22
Ethical leadership and corporate culture ....................................................................................... 23
Methods for a successful reporting scheme .................................................................................. 25
Chapter 5: CSR .................................................................................................................................. 27
Ethics and social responsibility ...................................................................................................... 28
Economic model of CSR ................................................................................................................. 30
Stakeholder model of CSR ............................................................................................................. 30
Integrative model of CSR ............................................................................................................... 31
Does “good ethics” mean “good business”? .................................................................................. 32
Chapter 7: Technology & Privacy in the workplace .......................................................................... 34
The right to privacy ....................................................................................................................... 35
Ethical use of technology .............................................................................................................. 37
Managing employees through monitoring..................................................................................... 38
Chapter 8: Ethics & marketing .......................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 9: Environmental Sustainability .......................................................................................... 52
Utilitarianism: p. 12 - 24 – 30 – 27 – 35 – 48 – 50 – 54
Kant: p. 15 - 30 – 27 - 35 – 54
1
,Chapter 1: Ethics and Business
ODP: Zika Virus and Olympic Sponsors (HDM, 2-3)
1. How much responsibility do sponsoring corporations bear for the outcomes of things
like the Olympic Games? All the sponsors are doing is paying money to have their
logos featured at Olympic venues and the right to use the Olympic logo in their
advertising. The Rio sponsors wouldn’t be directly spreading Zika. Does that
indirectness matter, ethically?
2. One danger is that the decision would not be based on ethics at all, and that the
organizations involved would fall prey to a general “the Olympics must go on!”
attitude (= a “can-do” attitude, Challenger 1986).
3. Does the lack of full agreement between experts absolve Olympic sponsors of blame
if the Rio Olympics ended up contributing to the spread of the Zika virus? Would it be
ethically correct of the sponsors to say, after the fact, “We didn’t know for sure there
would be a problem.”?
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Explain why ethics is important in the business environment.
2. Explain the nature of business ethics as an academic discipline.
3. Distinguish the ethics of personal integrity from the ethics of social responsibility.
4. Distinguish ethical norms and values from other business-related norms and values.
5. Distinguish legal responsibilities from ethical responsibilities.
6. Explain why ethical responsibilities go beyond legal compliance.
7. Describe ethical decision making as a form of practical reasoning.
Quotes:
o “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that
you’ll do things differently.” ~ Warren Buffett
o “Ethics is the new competitive environment.” ~ Peter Robinson, CEO, Mountain
Equipment Co-op (2000 – 2007). => it creates an edge
o “If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be
moral.” ~ Captain Samuel P. Ginder
2
,Making the Case for Business Ethics, why is ethics important in the business environment?
Business ethics is a process of responsible decision making.
o Scandals are brought about by ethical failures.
o Homework: familiarize yourself with the following cases: Enron/Arthur Andersen,
Madoff, BP Deep Water Horizon, Volkswagen.
This text provides a decision-making model that can help avoid future ethical failures.
As an introduction to this model, this chapter reflects on the intersection of ethics and
business (e.g. the Adam Smith problem).
There has been a shift from whether ethics should play a role in business decisions to how to
most effectively do so.
o Which values and principles should guide business decisions.
o Origins of this shift: the serious consequences of unethical behavior for many people
and organisations (e.g. Madoff).
Responsible decision making must move beyond concern for stockholders to consider the
impact on all stakeholders.
o Anyone who affects or is affected by decisions made within the firm, for better or
worse.
The case for (studying) Business Ethics:
o Unethical behavior might affect a wide range of people including ourselves (as
managers involved, or as employees, consumers, citizens, …).
o ‘Bad’ companies can lose in the marketplace (e.g. customer boycotts) or even go out
of business and employees might end up in jail.
o ‘Good’ companies might create an ethical competitive advantage through a good
reputation, attracting and holding good employees, values like trust …
o As future managers/leaders we will have to manage the ethical behavior of others
and will be seen as role models (e.g. Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, AIG).
Legal requirements. For business students, ethics is an
Unethical behavior creates legal, important field of study.
financial and marketing risks. Leaders need to know how to manage
Maintaining an ethical advantage aids ethical behavior of others.
success. Business must take ethics into account
Ethical reputations provide a and integrate ethics into its
competitive edge. organizational structure.
Ethical management may aid But what is ethics?
organizational structure and
efficiency.
3
, Business Ethics as Ethical Decision Making: nature of business ethics as an academic
discipline
Our approach to business ethics focuses on ethical decision making, not just on information
and knowledge about ethics.
The authors’ fundamental assumption is that a process of rational decision making can and
will result in behavior that is more reasonable, accountable, and ethical.
Ethics refers to how human beings should properly live their lives.
Even if an ethics course does not change your capacity to think, we believe that it could
stimulate your choices of what to think about.
Caution: no manipulation (influence someone’s behavior) but reasoning to attempt to
produce more ethical behavior among the students who enroll.
Influencing, manipulation, threats, guilt, pressure, bullying, intimidation, … do not belong in
an ethical classroom. Persuading through reasoning however does!
Our role [as teachers] should not be to preach our own ethical beliefs to a passive audience,
but instead to treat students as active learners and to engage them in an active process of
thinking, questioning, and deliberating.
Teaching ethics must challenge students to think for themselves!
Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility
Ethical business leadership is precisely this skill: to create the circumstances (= corporate
culture) within which good people are able to do good, and bad people are prevented from
doing bad.
How should we live? What is good or bad?
o Philosophers emphasize that ethics is normative, dealing with our reasoning about
how we should act (choose, behave and do things).
o Social sciences also examine human decision making/actions but these sciences are
descriptive rather than normative. They provide an account of how and why people
do act the way they do – they describe.
o As a normative discipline, ethics seeks an account of how and why people should act
a certain way, rather than how they do act.
o Philosophical ethics merely asks us to step back from implicit everyday decisions to
examine and evaluate them. More than 2,000 years ago Socrates gave the
philosophical answer to why you should study ethics: “The unexamined life is not
worth living.”
How should “we” live?
If defining “We” individually If defining “We” collectively
Here, ethics is based on our value This area is sometimes referred to as
structures, social ethics.
o defined by our moral systems; Here, we judge companies from a
o and, referred to as morality; social perspective;
o or personal integrity o for their social responsibility.
Managerial decisions involve both aspects of ethics: personal integrity and social responsibilities.
4
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