Business ethics is a branch of ethics (applied or professional) that focuses on ethical rules and principles from a commercial perspective. Business ethics is relevant to all aspects of business, individual conduct and organizational conduct. Various kinds of activities are examined to ascertain if they are ethically right or wrong. Business ethics is a form of applied ethics which is part of philosophy. Thus it takes ethical principles and concepts developed philosophically and theoretical for specific business application in a given scenario. Applied ethics is a field of ethical study that deals with the various ethical questions in fields such as the medical, technological, business and legal fields.

Business ethics can be both a normative and descriptive discipline. Ethics as a cooperate function and a carrier the field is basically normative. The extent and amount of business ethical issues shows the level at which the business is at odds with non-economic social value. Some issues faced in business ethics include black market sales, bribery and kick backs, creative accounting, advertising deception, political influence, industrial espionage, discrimination and competitive disinformation.

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.

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.

Human resource management is responsible for the recruitment of workers, training and orientation, performance appraisal, health and safety and other issues with ethical implication. Many argue that there can be no ethics beyond using human resources as a tool for earning higher profits for shareholders this view is influenced by the “Neoliberal Logic”. Another argues that the well being of labour is not second to shareholder profits. Whichever way, it is important that the dignity of labour is preserved.

Marketing, sales and production also have the ethical policies that guide them. It is important that companies don’t take advantage of those they relate with and evaluate what they term “conflict of interest.” It is in every business interest to make profit, but at what cost?

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