Business Ethics: Lessons Learnt and Practical Applications

Running head: BUSINESS ETHICS
BUSINESS ETHICS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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BUSINESS ETHICS
Executive Summary
The report aims at reflecting on the different lessons that are learnt through the sessions based on
the ethics and the challenges faced by the leaders and subordinates while performing their
respective job roles in an organization. Reflection on the ethics has helped in maintaining a
cohesive account of the diverse approaches that are utilized by the leaders of the organization. As
per the case, the different ethical theories and their practical application is being set as an
example for the future leader to undertake the different forms of ethical leadership backdrop.

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Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Week 1.........................................................................................................................................3
Week 2.........................................................................................................................................4
Week 3.........................................................................................................................................4
Week 4.........................................................................................................................................5
Week 5.........................................................................................................................................5
Week 6.........................................................................................................................................6
Week 7.........................................................................................................................................7
Week 8.........................................................................................................................................8
Week 9.........................................................................................................................................9
Week 10.......................................................................................................................................9
Week 11.....................................................................................................................................10
Week 12.....................................................................................................................................11
Task 2.............................................................................................................................................11
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................18

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Task 1
Week 1
The first week of my class was associated with the introductory session about morality
and ethics. Before going into the vastness of morality I had came to know about the correlation
and distinctiveness between morality and social responsibility. This is a basic idea that most of
the students fail to understand. It can be argued that ethics and social responsibility possess the
same idea of benevolence but there is a sharp difference between the two ideas. In a single
sentence, ethics or morality means doing right where as social responsibility also reflects the
same gesture but in a different way. Doh and Quigley (2014) stated that morality is defined as a
systematic behaviour that decides and determines right or wrong. In this regard, there are some
elements that deliver a clear idea of the dynamics of morality. Such as moral standards, moral
responsibility and moral identity are considered to be the pivotal parts in understanding morality.
Bello (2012) stated that Moral standards are related to the specific behaviour of an individual or
a group or an organisation where as the moral responsibility refers to the conscience in an
individual or collective sense. Besides this, the moral identity encompasses the idea of the right
or wrong action. Social responsibility means acting as a responsible member in the society. It can
be advocated that in the present case scenario the role of ethics becomes so imperative for the
business organisations due to the increasing power of the media. In this context, it is necessary to
understand different approaches of ethics more closely. Sohmen (2013) stated that the term
ethics connotes the same meaning related to moral. In fact, the study of moral is called ethics.
Therefore, ethics is based on some principles and theories narrated by the philosophers.

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However, there are series of approaches related to the study of moral and as a result of that we
can find ethical pluralism in course of the discussion.
Week 2
The discussion requires an in depth understanding about the different approaches of
ethics. The basic understating underlines doing the right thing. However, philosophers interpret
the way towards right in various manners. As far as the utilitarian principles of ethics are
concerned, it resembles the idea of greatest good for the greater number of people. Pardo, A., &
Siemens, G. (2014) stated that utilitarian principles reflected on the development of ethics with
the perception to do something for the betterment of maximum number of people. The utilitarian
theory puts emphasis on the spontaneity of human mind to distinguish between right or wrong. In
this context, the discussion in the week 2 mentioned some examples to create a better
understanding about the utilitarian theory. On the contrary, Bhopal (2016) stated that the
deontological theory of ethics interprets ethics as a wish of the god. In other words, according to
the deontological ethics God is the absolute power to decide right or wrong. In respect to the
discussion, business organisations have been started taking ethics seriously from 1990s and
understand the value of ethics to resume their business in future. Therefore, the role of social
responsibility becomes relevant and reflects a clear perception about the role of the managers in
taking decisions based on ethical standpoint. Generally, the purpose of the second week lecture is
to depict a picture of ethics and its influence in business organisations in the form of social
responsibility.
Week 3
In my third week lecture I had to deal with some ethical dilemmas which people are often
faced in their daily life. For making a better idea of morality and ethics related problems the