Business Ethics
Ethics and Law - The Distinctions
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Law and Ethics - the Distinctions
Although many people equate obeying the law with being ethical, they are not the same
thing.
Situations will arise in which laws might not be broken, but ethical standards will be violated.
Laws serve as a minimum requirement for ethicality. In other words, obeying the law is
necessary but not sufficient in behaving ethically in the corporate world.
For example, imagine you’ve been asked to serve on a planning committee. Your objective is
to decide whether to broaden the company’s product line to include accessories for mobile
phones. You currently own stock in a company that makes such accessories. Because
competition from your own company might hurt the value of your stock, you might be
tempted to influence the committee to decide not to go in that direction.
This type of ethical dilemma is called a conflict of interest.
It is not illegal to act in a situation in which you have a conflict of interest, but it might well
be unethical.
In this case, you could avoid the ethical dilemma by explaining your situation and then
immediately resigning from the committee.
Some organizations have strict ethics guidelines on how to avoid conflict of interest. Here is
one example:
IBM
IBM identifies and strictly prohibits conflicts of interests. The restrictions in some common
areas are well stated. For examples, employees are not allowed to
a. Assist a competitor in the capacity of employee, consultant or director
b. Involve in any activity that will compete with any of IBM's actual or potential businesses
c. Supply to IBM, or represent or assist suppliers to IBM
d. Do any outside work using IBM's time or facilities
e. Have any interests in a company that deals with or competes with IBM, whether public
listed or closely held
g. Use insider-information for trading shares
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Please select from the list
below other articles on ethics
in this site:
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Here are some of the useful courses on Ethics that you may wish to consider signing up for:
Corporate Governance and Ethics
This online course on Corporate Control and Governance employs a stakeholder
management framework, emphasizing business' social and ethical responsibilities to both
internal and external stakeholders. A twin theme of business ethics demonstrates how
ethical or moral considerations have to be included when dealing with the public issues
facing organizations and during the decision-making process. This novel and innovative
program teaches companies and professionals how to lessen fraud losses as well as how to
effectively eliminate future frauds. This ethics course offers comprehensive coverage of fraud
detection, fraud warning signs, technological fraud detection tools, investigation techniques
(especially useful to auditors, security personnel, and managers), financial statement
screening, fraud risk in e-commerce, pro-active fraud risk and much more.
Ethics and Values - for Social Workers
There are questions of values and ethics everywhere in life. Each of us has his or her views
of what is right or wrong, or what is of greater inportance, hence having higher priority. We
usually do not consider ourselves as beginners when we deal with this topic of what we
consider as right or wrong. This course is an introduction to the topic, but new questions
and dilemmas related to ethics and values will arise in every piece of work you undertake as
a social worker.
Business Ethics
The functions of an ethics program are stated, ethics defined, and general characteristics of
the ethics program listed. Identify ethical standards for fairness and honesty, precise record
keeping, and complying with antitrust regulations. Identify ethical standards for giving and
receiving gifts, gratuities, and entertainment with customers and suppliers, government and
non-government personnel, and foreign officials. Identify standards for managing conflicts of
interest, financial standards, including preservation of assets, restrictive trade practices,
intellectual properties, and employee relations. Recognize the duty to comply with and report
suspected ethical violations, what disciplinary action could result from failure to comply with
or report violations, and how to raise ethical concerns and seek additional counsel.
Recognize the relevanc of ethics principles through learning from case studies.
Ethical Issues for Bankers
Ethical Issues for Bankers prepares students to meet the ethical standards expected of
financial services professionals. Students will learn the general guidelines that determine
banking ethics, gain the knowledge and skills needed to perform ethical decision-making,
and be prepared to observe their institution's code of conduct and Federal laws. Students
will also explore typical ethical dilemmas that tend to occur in financial institutions, and learn
how to apply a thoughtful three-step approach to such dilemmas."
Ethics - Standards of Professional Conduct : Especially suitable for Engineers.
Many organizations, particularly smaller businesses, do not have a written set of standards
to provide guidance to their employees on ethical matters related to their job duties. While
each job title, company and industry deals with unique circumstances, there are some
standards of professional conduct for engineers that are considered the norm across a
broad range of job titles, companies and even industries. In matters such as conflicts of
interest, use and protection of employer's assets, and disclosure of proprietary information,
there are universal standards of accepted conduct for engineers working for employers
based in developed countries (although the detailed policies may vary between companies).
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has developed a document titled "Standards
of Professional Conduct" for its members. In addition to the aforementioned examples of
ethical issues, the ASCE's standards cover issues such as maintaining accurate and complete
records, outside employment/activities, acceptance of bribes or kickbacks and whistle
blowing. The ASCE's standards serve as an excellent model for companies seeking to provide
guidance to engineers on ethical matters related to their position and the performance of
their work tasks. It also provides a universal set of principles to guide individual engineers
on ethical matters in the absence of an employer policy.
In this course, the student will be directed to ASCE's website to review the ASCE document
titled "Standards of Professional Conduct".
The student must take a multiple-choice quiz consisting of fifteen questions at the end of this
course to earn PDH credits.
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Brought to you by Jacob Gan, PhD (Michigan)
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