Relevance of Ethics for Business Decisions: A Case Study of Target Corporation

Business and Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
THE RELEVANCY OF ETHICS FOR BUSINESS DECISIONS- LITERATURE REVIEW.....1
RELEVANCY OF ETHICS FOR BUSINESS DECISIONS OF TARGET CORPORATION.....3
Identifying and analyzing policies to ethics in business decision-making..................................3
Decisions or cases of Target corporation related to ethics in decision-making..........................4
IS ETHICS RELEVANT FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business ethics is the study of business activities, decisions and situations where issues of
right or wrong are addressed (De George, 2011; Crane and Matten, 2016). Moreover, business
ethics is set of code of conduct and standards which follows by the organizations while
conducting business activities (Trevino and Nelson, 2016). In this context, the current report is
based on the relevance of ethics for business decisions and for this purpose, US-based retail
organization Target Corporation has been selected to analyze the cases of business ethics.
Furthermore, policies and laws adopted by Target corporation have also been identified and
evaluated to build the sustainability of the business. At the end, suggestions have been collected
regarding the relevancy of ethics for small business with literature.
THE RELEVANCY OF ETHICS FOR BUSINESS DECISIONS- LITERATURE
REVIEW
According to several studies, ethics plays an important role in the businesses because it
reflects the authenticity and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of the organizations
(Lehnert, Park and Singh, 2015; Craft, 2013; Buchan, 2005). In this context, Kouchaki, Smith-
Crowe, Brief and Sousa (2013) asserted that wrong decisions affect the image of the firms in the
competitive market place because the firm ignores the ethical values and take the decisions on
the basis of other factors. Moreover, Crossan, Mazutis and Seijts (2013) stated that ethical
decision-making provides insights for the future empirical work on behalf of the organization’s
decisions. In this regard, Woiceshyn (2011) notified that ethical decisions help to reduce the
ethical dilemma in the context of the firms because the decision-makers focus on moral values
while taking decisions. However, Soltani (2014) analyzed that most of the corporate
organizations take fraudulent decisions to artificially increase the compensations and benefits but
it creates significant ethical issues for the firm. Thus, it shows that ethics plays a critical role to
maintain the image of the firms and to take the ethical decisions to reduce ethical dilemmas.
Few of the studies revealed that ethical or unethical decisions in business have far-
reaching implications on the success of the organizations because it includes many types of
transactions (Belak and Pevec Rozman, 2012; Woiceshyn, 2011). Additionally, businesses
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involve the relationships with different parties such as stakeholders, employees, customers,
suppliers etc. which remains affected by the organization’s decisions. Further, Ruedy and
Schweitzer (2010) notified that decisions become more adequate and supportive for the
organizations which are based on the ethical values and principles because it covers the benefit
of all parties instead of individuals. However, Belak and Pevec Rozman (2012) argued that
unethical behavior in business decisions affects the business transactions in long-term and
negatively affects the future business activities in terms of no contracts with suppliers and
reduction in the number of customers. Hence, it reflects that ethics in business decisions is
equivalent to the essential sources of the organizations because the lack of ethical behavior leads
the firm to failure. Furthermore, unethical activities breach the contracts with suppliers and ruin
the relationships with connected parties.
Woiceshyn (2011) asserted that implementation of business ethics is required to measure
the enterprise expectations for employee decision-making. In this context, Thiel et al. (2012)
revealed that ethical decision influences the employee’s performance which makes an impact on
the company’s performance. On the other hand, Ünal, Warren and Chen (2012) notified that
absence of ethics increases the chances of expenses for the firm because individuals tend to
promote self-interest at the expense of others in the organization in case of resources unevenly
distributed. In this regard, Craft (2013) stated that ethics help the decision-makers to take the
practical and right decisions in favor of the enterprise and reduce all stuff which diminishes the
productivity of the workers. Apart from this, Stenmark et al. (2010) mentioned that ethical
decisions are based on the welfare of others and include the intentional help as well as respect
the right of others for the effectiveness of business decisions. Besides this, Lehnert, Park and
Singh (2015) stated that ethics in decision-making provides a way to respect the cultural values,
norms and performing duties in favor of social aspects. On the contrary, Markham and Buchanan
(2012) asserted that follow the ethical norms in the business decisions is not an easy task because
it requires to keep set rules and norms in the context of ethical standards. Therefore, it reflects
that ethics needs in each filed of the organizations which help to take better decisions with
ethical rules. Moral decisions encourage employees to work more wisely and perform their
duties in favor of society.
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