Business Ethics
Assignment
From recent newspaper/ business magazine / visual sources , Write a note with examples on three main ethical issues faced by companies today in any one of the following areas
HR Product development Marketing Environment Corporate governance
Ethics Project
CSR Projects of Corporates What is CSR Secondary data on CSR project of company Newspaper reports Primary data Videos
Ethical Issues
Examine these issues from two points of view
1. 2. What is unethical about these and who are the affected stakeholders Justify on the basis that business has its own special rules and ethical stds.
Margeret Hasselman who worked as an attendant in a New York high rise was forced to wear a revealing uniform which led to harrassment from male guests. She was fired when she refused to wear it. She lost the case she filed in court. Chrysler motors chairman Lee Iacoca met President Nixon to kill a regulation for installation of airbags in 1971. Finally when the law came into being in 1989 100,000 deaths had occurred on account of this and the industry saved 30 million dollars every year Pepsi and Coco-cola are competitors but they dont compete on price. Former Goldman Sachs Director Mr Rajat Gupta's fall from grace began in April 2010, as part of the investigation into Raj Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan hedge fund manager accused of insider trading. The government accused Mr Gupta of tipping off Mr Rajaratnam of Warren Buffet's decision to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Mr Gupta allegedly learned this information on September 23 in 2008 at a board meeting. His tip allegedly allowed Mr Rajaratnam to buy the stock before the news was made public the next day. Mr Rajaratnam made a profit of $800,000 in just 24 hours.
2G scam
Satyam Scam
Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam
Telgi Scam
Ethical issues in business
Rights of employees Product features and marketing Social problems, equal opportunity, gender problems Employee loyalty, private business interests Employee obligation to customers, competitors
What is Ethics
Right/wrong
Adherence to truth, commitment to justice and public integrity
Trust
Suppliers Employees Customers shareholders
Ethical decision making
Serious consequences to human welfare Morality takes precedence over other standards
What is not business ethics
Ethics and religion
Religion has rituals to be adhered to You can be ethical and agnostic
Ethics and law
Different standards in different countries with regard to child labour, environment etc Legal and unethical
Ethics and etiquette
Violating a dress code Table manners
An action can be illegal but morally right [Link] lPY&feature=player_detailpage
An action can be legal but morally wrong
October 17, 2008 Less than 48 hours after Jet Airways announced the retrenchment of 1,900 employees, the airline decided to reinstate all the employees. Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal, in the late evening press conference on Thursday, requested all the sacked employees to come back to work from Friday. "I apologise for the trauma which the sacked employees have gone through in the last two days. The company is like my family and so are the employees. As the father of the family, I cannot see unhappy faces. My conscience does not allow me to see my employees worried." Stating that he had not taken the decision under any political pressure, Naresh Goyal said that the management of the company took the decision of sacking the employees due to financial woes that the entire industry is facing. Now it is my decision alone to take back all the employees."
Distinctive Features
Serious consequences to human welfare Morality takes precedence over other standards Soundness of moral standards depend on supporting reasons unlike law or fashion
Ford Pinto case study
[Link]/~sheppard/303/ppts/[Link]