Article: Where Business Ethics and Self-Interest Meet; Schools' Responsibility
published on 28.06.1987
by s743120
In the last 25 years, American industries, actually industries all over the world, has suffered a lot by moral wrong conduct and all kinds of other moral issues. The education of business ethics at business school certainly, however, it is not enough and effective without the attention from all other parties, such as family education, elementary school education, companies concern, etc.
In the business environment, ethics seems somehow a bit paradoxical. The purpose of business is to generate profit, which is in conflict with moral conducts. This kind of argument was acceptable decades ago, which is exactly why there are so much moral issues causing loss for society and the company itself. Thus, the topic of business ethics has been brought into light.
In the early stage of capitalism, companies only cared the benefit of shareholders. Then problems started to appear in modern western markets. More and more people found out: the company will suffer in the end if it ignores other stakeholders’ benefit. Just like the definition of morality of functional tradition, it refers a set of rules needed to deal with dual aspects of mankind. Since different stakeholders have their own interests. In most of the case, these interests are in conflict with each other, moral issue appears consequently. Morality has the function to ensure the order, stability and continuity of the business. The financial crisis is a proof to show business cannot develop continuously without regulation. As conclusion, the function of business ethics is to keep balance among diverse interests of different stakeholders, which need the effort from the whole society aside of business school education.
Link to the lecture:
The functional tradition
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7 comments:
I do not agree with you; the function of Business Ethics is not to keep balance among diverse interests of different stakeholders.
Business Ethics is there to prevent that people '(mis)use' other people to make profit.
As for your statement: 'The financial crisis is a proof to show business cannot develop continuously without regulation.'
Again, I do not agree, of course this statement is partially true, but as we all know it started with the house-market in the US which collapsed, because a lot of people got a loan while they didn't have a good income.
Morality is not only a set of rules to deal with dual aspects of mankind, Moral imperatives and judgments can guide action and motivate individuals, it teach people to act rational.
For business ethics, it serves the important social function of integrating business and society by promoting the legitimacy of business operations, through critical reflection.It also has the relationship with law, there are more potential functions of business ethics, not only keep balance among diverse interests of different stakeholders.
By,
Zhe Gong
s479253
The purpose of business is to generate profit; agree! A company will suffer in the end if it ignores other stakeholders’ benefit; agree!
I agree on both and this thus means that in order to make profit you have to keep the interest of other stakeholders in mind.
Keeping the interest of other stakeholders in mind, in other words just don’t ‘(mis)use’ other people. NOT: keeping balance among the interests. So, on this point I agree on with s703463.
You can keep balance among the interests of different stakeholders, but your own/ your own businesses interest comes first! You cannot equally balance…
BUT in order not to suffer you cannot ignore other stakeholders. So don’t you think that the interests go a kind of hand in hand (in some cases at least)?!
Kind regards,
Debbie
s347055
If you say that BE is there to keep balance among diverse interests of different stakeholders
I think you are wrong. Because these interests can be very diverse, but you don't need morality in all these cases to balance the different interest. I think BE's function is to provide a foundation to evaluate moral hard cases, to understand the role a company has in society and also to modify or completely change decisions that were made from the 'profit maximization' perspective, in such a way that other people or the environment will not be harmed.
Do put Business Ethics in the bussiness education may bring more morality in everyday bussiness, but not the most efficient way. Like in the ART, human beings are rational beings, they won't change their way of think simply by 2 hours per week lectures.
I also don't agree with 'the financial crisis is a proof to show business cannot develop cotinuously without regulation'
the crisis is the normal drop during economics cycle.
"The purpose of business is to generate profit, which is in conflict with moral conducts." I particularly do not agree with this sentence. Generating profit, or gaining money in any other way, cannot be generalized into moral wrong conduct. It's man's nature to gain the means to live. Generating profit is the automatic gains from owning a business. It's absolutely wrong to say that anybody owning a business conducts moral wrong conduct.
"More and more people found out: the company will suffer in the end if it ignores other stakeholders’ benefit." I also do not agree with this. It's not so much the companies that suffered from this (because, frankly, they were flourishing, so I'm not sure about your source), but rather the society as a whole which is protected by the concept of a set of general and moral rules of ethical nature within the sphere of the market: business ethics
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