Business Ethics Terms

Attempt to create employee satisfaction through negotiating for desired behaviors or levels of performance.

Strive to raise employees level of commitment and foster trust and motivation.

are passionate about the company, live out corporate values daily in their behavior in the workplace, and form long-term relationships with employees and other stakeholders.

R: Recognize ethical issues.

A: Avoid misconduct whenever possible

D: Detect/Discover ethical risk areas

A: Answer stakeholder concerns when ethical issues come to light

R: Recover from a misconduct disaster by improving upon weaknesses in the ethics programm

1. Take corrective action
2. Compensate stakeholders harmed by the misconduct
3. Express regret for the misconduct
4. Reinforce the firm's reputation with positive messages

are emotionally intelligent leaders who demonstrate mindfulness of themselves and their own emotions, a belief that goals can be met, and a caring attitude toward others within the organization.

Air pollution, where trapped gases, including methane, are released into the atmosphere.

Takes into consideration social and environmental performance variables in addition with economic performance.

is a strategic process involving stakeholder assessment to create meaningful long-term relationships with costumers, while maintaining, supporting, and enhancing the natural environment.

involves misleading a consumer into thinking a product or service is more environmentally friendly than it really is.

Two or more things are good.

Bsp: Non-hedonists.

Deal with problems in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist, rather than following  fixed ideas, theories, or rules.

Focus on the end result of actions and the goodness or happiness created by them.

Emphasizes the means (Mittel)  and motives by which actions are justified.

Examples: Teleology, Deontology

Consequentialism (based on consequences).

Stipulates acts are morally right or acceptable if they produce some desired result, such as realization of self-interest or utility.

Examples: Egoism, Utilitarianism

part of Teleology / Consequentialism.

Defines right or accaptable actions as those that maximize a particular person's self-interest as defined by the individual.

Enlighted Egoism: Allows the well being of others, but self-interst remains paramount.

part of Teleology / Consequentialism.

Defines right or acceptable actions as those that maximize total utility, or the greates good for the greatest number of people.

• Rule utilitarianism: Determine behavior on basis of principles, rules, designed to promot the greates utility.
• Act utilitarianism: Examine specifiv action itself, rather than the general rules governing it.

Based on the behavior of an individual, not society. (respect for persons)

Focuses on the preservation of individual rights and on the intentions associated with a particular behavior rather than on its consequenses.

Greatly influenced by Immanuel Kant: "Act as if thy maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature."

Nature of moral principles are permanent stable and compliance with absolute rights: Freedom of conscience, freedom of consent, freedom of privacy, freedom of speech, due process.

• Rule deontologist: Believe that conformity to general moral principles based on logic determines ethicalness.
• Act deontologist: hold that actions are the proper basis on which to judge morality or ethicalness.

Based on experience of individuals and groups.

• Descriptive relativism: Refers to the existance of moral disagreements between cultures or individuals.
• Meta-ethical relativism: People see situation from their own perspectives = no objective way of resolving ethical disputes between different value systems or individuals.
• Normative relativism: Assumes that one person's opinion is as good as anothers.

Asumes what is moral in a given situation is not only what conventional morality requires but also what the mature person with a "good" moral character deems appropriate.

• Trust
• Self-Control
• Empathy
• Fairness
• Truthfulness
• Learning
• Gratitude
• Vicility
• Moral leadership

Fair treatment with ethical and legal standards. Evaluates ethicalness on the basis of fairness.

• Distributive justice: Based on the evaluation of outcomes or resulsts of the business relationship.
• Procedural justice: Based on the processes and activities that produce the outcome or results.
• Interactional justice: Based on the relationship between organizational members, including the ways that employees and management treat one another.

People pass through six cognitive development stages, divided into three different stages of ethical concern.

1. Punishment and obedience
2. Individual instrumental purposes and exchange
3. Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and conformity
4. Social system and conscience maintenance
5. Prior rights, social contract, or utility
6. Universal ethical principles

The model suggests that people continue to change their decision-making priorities after their formative years, and as a result of time, education, experience, they may change their values and ethical behavior.

The three levels of ethical concerns:

1. Immediate self-interest
2. social expectations
3. general ethical principles

• Compliance orientation: Creates order by requiring that employees identify with, and commit to, specific required conduct.
• Values orientation: Strives to develop shared values, with a focus on core ideals such as accountability (Verantwortung) and commitment (Verpflichtung).