Business ethics is a branch of ethics (applied or professional) that focuses on standards and ethics from a business perspective. Business ethics is important for all aspects of business, individual behavior and organizational behavior.

Several types of activities are examined to determine whether it is ethically right or wrong. Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that is part of philosophy. Therefore, it is ethical and philosophical and theoretical concepts developed for specific business applications in a given scenario. Applied ethics is a field of study of ethics deals with ethical issues in various fields such as medicine, technology, business and legal.

Business ethics can be both a normative and descriptive discipline. Ethics as a function of cooperation and a carrier of the field is primarily normative. The scope and quantity of business ethical issues shows the level at which the company disagrees with the social value of non-economic.

A business has the tendency to become unethical and business today has a lot of unethical practices, therefore it is important that discussions be held by individuals or organizations in the same line of business. Businesses are run in social and natural environments and should be able to evaluate the impact their business practices have on their immediate surroundings. A company is responsible irrespective of financial gain and other factors to the stakeholders (those affected by the business) and because every action has paths of ethical implication. Large companies affect the environment they operate in and are held accountable for the condition of the residents. It is common for large companies like oil producing companies to provide basic amenities like health care, education and job opportunities to the communities they reside in.

Some problems faced in business ethics include Black market sales Corruption and bribery creative accounting Misleading advertising Political influence Industrial espionage Discrimination competitive disinformation.

In a business there are many sectors with different responsibilities and processes. Ethical practices may slightly vary from one sector to the other but come together to define the company’s ethical policies. The financial aspect of business ethics is concerned with debt and equity financing, dividend policy, evaluation of alternative investment projects.

HRM is responsible for hiring workers, training and orientation, performance appraisal, health and safety and other issues with ethical implications. Many argue that there can be no ethics beyond use human resources as a tool to obtain higher profits for the shareholders of this vision is influenced by “neo-liberal logic.” Another argues that the welfare of the workforce is second to profits for shareholders. Either way, it is important that the dignity of work remains.

Marketing, sales and production also have ethical policies that guide them. It is important that companies do not take advantage of those who relate and evaluate what they call “conflict of interest.” It has all the interest of companies to profit, but at what cost?

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