Session-01 BUSS6066005_Ethics and Business

Institution: AACSB Accredited Binus University
Binus Business School is recognized as an AACSB accredited school
- AACSB International: Ensures the highest standards for business education
Website: bbs.binus.ac.id

These slides are adapted from Hartman, L., DesJardins, J., & MacDonald, C. (2021).
Title: Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility. 5th Edition.
Publisher: McGraw Hill, New York, USA.
ISBN: 9781260260496
Chapter Referenced: Chapter 1

Learning Outcome 1 (LO 1): Identify the context of business ethics for personal and professional scenarios.

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

Define and explain:
- Ethics and the Law
- Business Ethics as Ethical Decision Making
- Business Ethics as Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility

Definition: Originates from the Greek word ethos, referring to cultural values, norms, beliefs, and expectations.
Scope: Ethics examines how people ought to live and act, distinguishing from how they typically do.
Focus Areas: Investigates ethical questions at individual, organizational, and social/political levels.
Roles: As ethically responsible individuals, consider interactions as consumers, employees, managers, executives, and citizens.

Objectives:
- Develop knowledge and skills to identify ethical issues.
- Understand unethical behavior origins.
- Decide actions and types of individuals we should strive to be.
- Create ethical organizations.
- Consider social, economic, and political policies as responsible citizens.

Importance of Law: Critical in guiding ethical decisions, and aligns with legal expectations and requirements.
Key Conflict: Legal norms do not always equate to ethical standards. For example:
- Respecting employees may be ethical but not legally required.
- Legal actions like unjust terminations can ethically violate expected standards.

Ethics Officers: Many corporations hire ethics officers to manage corporate ethics programs effectively.
Challenges: Much time is spent on legal compliance due to different environments across companies and industries.

Ethical Shortcomings:
- Legal compliance alone does not fulfill ethical duties.
- Ethical responsibilities extend beyond legal minimums.
- Laws may not cover all ethical dilemmas, leading to gaps in guidance.
- Misconception that compliance alone is ethically sufficient.

Historical Context: Many scandals involved professionals justifying actions based on legal defenses.
Risk Assessment Process: A critical component of ethical decision-making, involving considerations like:
- Likelihood of court challenges
- Probabilities of loss and settlement
- Cost-benefit analyses
- Ethical implications of actions taken

Goal of Education: Teaching students responsible thinking and deliberation.
Philosophy: Ethical decision-making should stem from careful deliberation for more responsible actions.
Focus Shift: While ethics is an extensive academic field, business ethics should prioritize ethical behavior over mere knowledge acquisition.

Definition of Ethics: Involves choices and behaviors.
Normative Ethics: Concerns how we ought to act and sets norms for behavior.
- Different from Descriptive Ethics, which simply observes and describes behavior rather than prescribing ideals.

Morality and Ethics: Morality refers to individual decision-making. Questions like:
- "How should I live?"
- "What kind of person should I be?"
Concept of Integrity: Wholeness and alignment of actions with beliefs.
Social Ethics: Focuses on communal well-being through norms across sectors (political, economic, civic).

Norms: Defined as proper behavioral standards guidance influenced by ethics, etiquette, or economics.
Values: Core beliefs guiding actions, impactful in areas like finance, religion, politics, and science.
Ethical Values: Focus on impartiality and human well-being, comprising qualities such as respect, honesty, and health.

Practical Reasoning: Pertains to actions and decisions about what should be done.
Theoretical Reasoning: Seeks truth and beliefs, separate from the practice of ethics.

Prompts:
- Discuss why laws are insufficient for ethical responsibilities.
- Explore the benefits and costs associated with business ethics in individuals versus firms.
- Research the recent oil spill news, assessing firms' ethical behaviors.
- Analyze the motivations behind "ethical" activities and if publicity impacts ethical practices.

Cited Work:
- Hartman, L., DesJardins, J., & MacDonald, C. (2021). Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility. McGraw Hill.
- ISBN: 9781260260496