Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

1. Business Ethics and
Social Responsibility
Dr. Sanjay Mishra, PhD (BHU)
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are
of the presenter 1

2. Business Ethics is
• What is appropriate and what is not- in short or
long term from the business viewpoint …..
• Appropriate in Business is-
• Trust of the customer/party
• Long term relations
• Horizontal rapport
• With a feeling of service to the society
• After a certain level of satisfaction society pays
back to the business
2

3. Business Ethics/Corporate Ethics
• Business Ethics (also known as Corporate Ethics) is a form
of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical
principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business
environment
• Business ethics has both normative and descriptive
dimensions. As a corporate practice and a career
specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics
attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive
methods.
• The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the
interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic
concerns. Interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically
during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations
and within academia. 3

4. Ethical Issues in Business
• Adulteration in edible items
• Product Safety/ Unequal Standards
• Product storage and logistics irresponsibility
• Customers as quantity of consumption
• Surrogate Advertising/ Treacherous Campaigns
• Finished accountability after selling the product.
• Less expenditure on social causes/wellbeing
• Environmental issues
4

5. Genesis
• Ethics come from [Middle English ethik, from Old
French ethique (from Late Latin ḗthica, from
Greek ḗthika, ethics) and from Latin thic (from
Greek ḗthik), both from
Greek ḗthikos, ethical, from ḗthos, character; see s(w)e- in
Indo-European roots.]European meant for character/ manner
or
• 1:
(a) A set of principles of right conduct.
(b) A theory or a system of moral values: "An ethic of service is
at war with a craving for gain" (Gregg Easterbrook).
• 2: Ethics : The study of the general nature of morals and of
the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral
philosophy.
• 3: Ethics : The rules or standards governing the conduct of a
person or the members of a profession: medical ethics. 5

6. Major branches
• Meta-Ethics, about the theoretical meaning and
reference of moral propositions and how
their truth-values (if any) may be determined;
• Normative Ethics, about the practical means of
determining a moral course of action.
• Applied Ethics, about how moral outcomes can
be achieved in specific situations.
• Moral Psychology, about how moral capacity or
moral agency develops and what its nature is.
• Descriptive Ethics, about what moral values
people actually abide by.
6

7. Inventory of ethical Issues in Business
• Employee – Employer Relations
• Employee –Employee Relations
• Company- Customer Relations
• Company-Shareholder Relations
• Company- Community /Public
Relations
7

8. 8

9. Why talk about Business Ethics?
• For last decade there are evidences that the
frequency related to business ethics violation
increased
• Recently food adulteration in National Capital
region and around came into limelight
• Corporate, Governance, Service Sector Govt.
machinery
• Due to professional lapses, incidences frequently
take shaping and now a frequent phenomena in
India
9

10. 10

11. 11

12. Can we consider?
• “We Will Not lie, Steal or Cheat,
No Tolerate Among Us Anyone Who
Does”
• Which do you think is the tougher
part
• Line 1 or Line 2 ? And Why?
12

13. Ethics, Economics & Law
• Ethical etiquette is personal but larger in
implications.
• Ethics pays in economic transactions and
strengthens the mutual relations than
anything in business expansion.
• Law is a watchdog, can check when it
sniffs and affect the repercussions not
the ethics straight.
13

14. Business, Society & Ethics
• It is society that makes the business
sustain, business is a tool to increase the
frequency of economic activities, not to
rule, control or govern the society.
• Exchange based society continued for long in the
past with minimum conflicts than modern
business.
• Physical form of business has less likelihood to
incur crisis related to business than abstract form
of business.
14

15. UNIVERSAL VALUES : GANDHIAN ETHICS
ISLAAM
BAHAISM
CONFUCIANISM
Satya
CHRISTIANITY Ahinsa JUDAISM
Sarvoday
Aparigrah
BUDDHISM
TAOISM
HINDUISM
15

16. Gandhian Approach
• He believed a business could and should be
conducted with complete honesty.
• Indeed, a business that was run honestly would be
more successful than one which was not.
• In business as well as personal life he subscribed to
the view : "Honesty is the best policy." A business
person had every right to earn a livelihood from their
business, although if vast income was earned from
the business, the business person should give what
he or she did not need to the community.
16

17. Trusteeship
• In his theory of trusteeship, Gandhi perceived
business as a form of service to the
community.
• Gandhian approach to business ethics relate
to today as much as to his lifetime.
• Gandhian thought need to go undergo
interpretation because of development the
business has undergone during last 50 years.
17

18. Gandhi and business ethics
• Business is a way to foster neighborliness, to
bring members of a community together and
a means by which people can love and serve
one another.
• Dr. Stephen Kovey one of world’s leading
management consultants and author of the
best selling book “The Seven habits of Highly
Effective People” says in his book:
18

19. Mahatma Gandhi said :
• That seven things will destroy us:
• Wealth Without Work
• Pleasure Without Conscience
• Knowledge Without Character
• Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics)
• Science Without Humanity
• Religion Without Sacrifice
• Politics Without Principle
• © 1990 Stephen R. Covey. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
http://www.mkgandhi.org/mgmnt.htm
19

20. Some case study
• For-Profit Colleges in the US: A Morally
Bankrupt Sector? case study (Case Code:
BECG117)
• BP's Continuing Safety Problems: The Gulf of
Mexico Crisis(Case Code: BECG116)
• Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Revisited after Twenty-
five Years(Case Code BECG115)
• Intel's 'World Ahead' Program - The Baramati
Project in India (Case Code:BECG098)
• http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/Case_Studies.asp?cat=Business%20Ethics
20