Relevance of Business Ethics

Discuss relevance of business ethics.

Ethics is a system of moral principles. Ethics concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy. Business ethics concerns itself with the choices exercised by the people in organizations in terms of decisions and actions. Some choices are considered to be good and some are not. A lot of the choice depends on the perspective of what is good for the business and from whose point of view. The decision to behave ethically is a moral one; employees must decide what they think is the right course of action. This may involve rejecting the path that would lead to the biggest short-term profit. All economically profitable actions and decisions are considered to be good. All organizational behavior of the individuals and groups is oriented in such perspective towards profit generation with a single minded focus. The danger with such a view or behavior is that sometimes it can be damaging others who are not shareholders, but who are affected by such behavior and decisions. Laws which govern such business behavior and choices deal with legally right and wrong aspects; they do not and cannot deal with morally right or wrong choices, so long as they are not legally wrong. However, this can lead to knowledgeable legally invulnerable, but otherwise damaging choices in business, damaging to customers, to society, to government and to stakeholders other than only the shareholders. An emerging point of view which is slowly gaining wider acceptance is that the greater good of all the stakeholders needs to be considered and organizational choices have to be made in line with such considerations, if the business has to be considered as operating with business ethics.
Social responsibility of business, not just responsibility to the shareholders, is the basis of this educate of consideration. This is necessary not from the point of view of a high-quality like business only; it is also necessary to...