Ethics And Business: The Importance Of Ethics In Business

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Ethics and Business
Ethics is a branch of philosophy and is considered a normative science as it is concerned with the norms of human conduct. It is the conception of right and wrong behavior, defining for us when our actions are moral or immoral.
Business Ethics is the art and discipline of applying ethical principles to examine and solve complex moral dilemmas. A business is considered to be ethical only if it manages to reach a tradeoff between pursuing its economic objective and fulfilling its social obligations.
Importance of Ethics in Business
Running a business ethically is all about developing trust and maintaining it so that a firm flourishes profitably and maintains good reputation. Trust leads to predictability and efficiency in
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4 Sphere Framework
The 4 sphere framework works as a guide while taking decisions such that a company or individual does not make hasty decisions when facing an ethical dilemma. It forces the individual to look at the problem from all aspects from the point of view of all involved stakeholders.
In any other circumstances, an individual may just consider personal gain or loss to arrive at a solution, however, on implementing the 4 sphere framework, the individual is able to think about the bigger picture and weigh in the gain or loss of all stakeholders that may be affected on a short as well as on a long term basis.
It is a very powerful framework for decision making and reminds an individual or firm of its responsibilities towards the various stakeholders and is key in keeping it aligned with its moral code.
Personal Ethical Values
Consists of the duties, commitments or ideals that shape and guide an individuals’ life. Such principles offer only an abstract and attenuated view; a philosophers x-ray of the more complex morality of an individuals’ ideals, commitments and
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The ideology and hard handedness of the CEO led to a culture shift in the entire organization making it unethical. B&L had several instances of unethical behavior globally, be it the case of the Latin American gray market or the Hong Kong dumping warehouse for Ray-Bans or the case where they repackaged and sold an older product as new to remain competitive.
It showed that B&L reached its targets in the short run but in the long run its reputation was besmirched and it lost the trust of its stakeholders.
ADMAP
We were also shown the thought provoking movie “The Insider”. In the movie the protagonist unable to fight the tobacco companies from within becomes a whistleblower after being sacked. He is helped by a journalist and we follow their journey as they are faced with questions about doing the greater good for the society or endangering personal goals and ambitions.
We learn that the criteria used is the scale and scope. It was a major learning as posed very real questions as may be faced by many of us in the corporate

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