Comparative Business Ethics & Social Responsibility

This article explores the ethical issues affecting businesses and their social responsibility. It discusses the importance of ethics education and the need for leadership in addressing complex ethical dilemmas. The article also covers key ethical issues, opinions on appropriate ethical decisions, and various moral philosophies. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of corporate culture in creating a company that supports ethical behavior and decision-making.

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 1
Name:
Course:
Professor’s name:
Institution:

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 2
Introduction
Following a report released by the Newdaily, various sectors differ in terms of the
manner in which they exercise ethics in their business operations. According to the Newdaily
(2018), Australians are most concerned about the unethical behaviors associated with banking
institutions and other financial institutions during the shocking revelations of misconduct in the
banking royal commission. However, there is an ongoing cause for concern in failure of
leadership in addressing the identified complex ethical dilemmas, particularly on disclosure and
conflict in the institutions which were reported as most unethical.
Recent research indicates that ethics education is progressing slowly but unevenly.
While innovative programs have been introduced by prominent individual ethicists and ethical
centers, narrow vocalization takes precedence still over management curriculum and personal
values in the business (Scott 2018, p. 234). In this article, we will look at the ethical issues
affecting the business and their social responsibility. We are also going to look at arguments
made about business ethics; also we will take a look at some moral philosophies as studied in
earlier lectures.
Summary of the arguments made.
People feels like they have been let down by their leaders as the degree of moral
confusion in the country is quite high. The collective sense of disappointment, shock and even
shame is quite strong (Tabetha 2015, 45). There is also a sense of uneasiness that not much is
being done to make sure that it doesn’t reoccur because of the relatively low number of people in
senior positions who are fluent, compelling and frequent when they speak out about ethical

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
issues. There is still a sense of equivocality on top executives about their leadership roles which
betrays the little understanding on how the cultures are changed or shaped.
But on the positives, from the perspective of senior management, there has been a
strong view that ethical issues of businesses have become much more important over a period of
five years (Ali 2013, p. 67). And whereas most of the top executives point to the measures of
deregulation in the 1980s as watersheds, accounting professionals highlights that the crash in
1987 was the catalyst for creation of new ethical responsibilities.
It has been increasingly acknowledged that rapid spread of our countries businesses
regionally and globalization has become complicating factors (Rita & Albert 2013, p. 34). For
that reason, as most business activities become broadly-based more, cultural and ethical
considerations come into play and organization managers spend their time dealing with them.
Over the past ten years, professionals like teachers, dentists, doctors and pharmacists’ job ratings
have improved steadily those of their counterparts in business-related occupations like lawyers
directors, accountants and executives have declined steadily showing that business ethics in the
country has clearly been prioritized. Sanctions might cause some serious problems morally and
also the imposers of the sanctions might take advantage of the situation and discriminate some
organizations. Also sanctions tend to sometimes cause a lot of harm to the victim and also
sometimes to the innocent.
Key ethical issues
Newdaily (2018) reports clearly indicates that many of the government’s and
businesses’ senior people were involved in the culture of greed, abuse of power and
opportunism. This led to the imprisonment of prominent corporate leaders and politicians which

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 4
led to the period of national reassessment and introspection extending. Ethical guidelines and
standards have become significant issues on the agenda of many organization managements
since then. But still, confusion on where ethical line should be drawn is of high degree. In some
cases, senior government and chief executives are finding accepting the responsibility of being
role models by upholding higher standards more than the rest of the society, difficult.
It’s clear that the some of the sectors are highly unethical and therefore there is a call
for corporate governance to be setting good framework higher accountability standards for senior
directors and managers. This is due to the increasing community demands for more
accountability and transparency with regard to shareholders’, management’s, and the wider
community’s relationship. Quite a number of corporations have identified specifically, the rising
political and community expectations on environmental protection, to being a major catalyst in
the corporate values reshaping, social responsibilities and relationships and also prompting
greater commitment to long-term planning. When organizations fail to withstand the extremely
strong commitment to social responsibility and ethical standards may lead to severe
environmental damage.
Good governance has wider impacts as it is fundamental about improving
accountability and transparency within existing systems. One of the most interesting
developments to occur in the previous years is the way corporate governance label is been used
in describing accountability and governance issues beyond business sector. This can be
misleading and confusing as corporate governance is developed and built to deal with listed
company entities’ governance and it is not designed for all organizational types which might
have different structures of accountability.

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 5
Opinion on whether appropriate ethical decision has been made.
In my opinion, appropriate ethical decisions are being progressively made as there are a
number of measures taken to strengthen professional, individual and corporates ethics through
revising the code of ethics in country. In highlighting professional responsibilities and duties to
the public, colleagues and clients, the code of ethics gives the public clear precedence placing a
heavy responsibility upon individuals to meet highest ethical standards even when not defined
clearly as it is stated in the code that the code’s provisions haven’t exhausted ethical and moral
considerations governing an individual. However, they act as a guidance to the individuals in the
ethical practice (Stipe 2016, p. 736). Also changes in the Companies Act in the country makes
directors of the company more accountable to the shareholders, and with the new management
code of ethics, it provides for suspensions, reprimands and expulsions for the directors breaking
them.
But despite these initiatives, there are still some serious worries continuing about
disclosure rules and also the inadequate takeover procedures in our country. However,
notwithstanding absence of formal institutional mechanisms to maintain and develop ethical
standards, and also business ethics’ external perception in our country is extremely favorable
(Justin 2014, p.35). This was according to a recent comparative rating that was conducted by
Transparency International that ranked Australia as among the world’s least corrupt countries.
It’s only a few of the organizations in our country that are addressing the issue on ethics
as a corporate issue that is to be strategically monitored and managed by the top management.
However, senior executives acknowledging the business community’s need to provide more
leadership in the area of ethics is an encouraging sign. The few organizations that see business

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 6
ethics issue as a management issue relates it to the thrust of the current strategy around customer
service, quality and excellence. For this reason, there is recognition that ethical value system
very much depends on the leadership of the organization and that managing personal
relationships with employees and the customers sensitively is an important corporate ethics
indicator.
Also managers recognize that there is need to communicate and try to shape core values
to ensure they are aligned with the organizations’ strategies and goals. Following several
transgressions experience in earlier years, professional bodies have prioritized education and
ethical assurance. For instance Australian Society of professionals created an Ethics Centre of
Excellence (Frank 2012, p. 547). Organization are establishing training courses, codes of conduct
and committees as a way of dealing with situations of conflict and of building obligations to
ethical practices. Another example, in Western Australia, innovative initiatives have being
undertaken with the aim to improve ethical standards through community education and better
public sector management.
And if sanctions were to be imposed, it won’t be reasonable in my opinion because
they might cause some serious moral problems as some serious moral questions might be raised
and cause some unwanted economic pressure. Also burden of moral justification shifts from the
ones who impose it. Economic sanctions also take a extended time to effectively work preferring
military intervention instead of the sanctions as it is a faster way of ending human rights abuse
causing the least harm overall. They also might cause the innocent some harm, those who bear
no responsibility, morally, for the illegality at hand (Tipkorn 2013, p. 132). There might also be
the issue on discrimination when imposing the sanctions which has been a problem for a long
time now.

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 7
Moral philosophies
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) comes into place when an organization is
committed to perform ethically while benefitting the stakeholders and the community and to
boost the economy as well (Wu 2014, 56). Corporate social responsibility assists an organization
in hiring and keeping the right employees and to also contribute to its business performance.
Both ethics and CSR can affect the strategy of the company closely (Chuck 2012, p. 57). The
company’s management should come up with good ethics as the other organization’s members
follow it. Also CSR’s ethical approach argues essentially against morally business practices that
are indifferent, favoring the expansive public policy and social advantages of stakeholder
management practices that are morally sensitive (Thomas 2012, p. 35). Many stakeholders’
expect ethical behavior to go beyond legal compliance which is mandatory with the managers
involving themselves in impartial reflection, morally, and extend beyond the law.
The use of ethical dilemmas- business ethics trainers teaches the basics of moral
philosophy by using situations of ethical dilemmas so as to inspire students doing business to
examine some automatic stances in business management areas. Also as commerce is increasing
globally, this effort is done from cross-culture ethics perspective.
Corporate culture- from the perspective of ethical system, creation and sustaining an
ethical culture that is strong is key to creating a company that supports people behaving ethically
every day and making effective ethical decision (Kurt 2012, p. 67). There are so many factors
and forces that make individual take ethical shortcuts. But when all organizational systems are
directing individuals in the same path, ethically, ethical failure declines. Ethical culture is seen as
a framework of multisystem including informal and formal system that is aligned so as to

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 8
support ethical action and judgment (Agnieska 2011, p. 67). Leadership is key to driving the
culture of ethics from an informal and formal perspective. Leaders provide with all the resources
required to implement programs and structures for ethical support. Formal systems include
policies and codes, selection systems, authority structures, orientation and training programs and
formal decision processes.
Conclusion
Determining whether corporate governance being practiced by organizations should
continue is very important. In my view, it is a very good practice being practiced by business
today. Corporate responsibility being accepted by the businesses can be effective if the
companies embrace it and not use it as a marketing exercise aimed at attracting more customers.
The government should be involved and should change the code of corporate responsibility to
mandatory from voluntary so that all the business are compelled to adopt it. Also a code like that
needs to be exercised more strictly so that there are lesser chances of paying below minimum
wage to their employees. Also, profiting using any means may lead to chaos and certain ethical
aspects are not only required but they are badly needed.

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 9
References
Agnieska., S. 2011, Social Responsibility Activity of Small Enterprise - Selected Areas*
Journal of Positive Management, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 65-67.
Ali., S. 2016, Exploring Information Ethics: A Metadata Analytics Approach, Journal of
Information Ethics, Vol. 25, No. 1, PP. 34-38.
Chuck., H. 2012, Reclaiming Ethics and Character for Public Service: What Does It Mean to
Serve One's Nation? The Federal Workforce Must Lead the Way in Reclaiming Ethics as a Core
Principle of Our Business Practices. Character Is No Longer a Private Issue, The Public
Manager, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 54-76.
Frank., C., J. Working through Ethics in Education and Leadership, Journal of Applied
Management and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 87-95.
Frank., F., L. 2012, Ethics Protocols and Research Ethics Committees: Successfully Obtaining
Approval for Your Academic Research, Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship,
Vol. 17, No. 2, PP. 546-556.
Justin, A., M. 2014, An Unmanageable Rationale: How Business Ethics Textbooks Unwittingly
Recommend a Virtue-Ethics Account of Moral Reasoning, Journal of Markets & Morality, Vol.
17, No. 1, pp. 35-67.
Kurt, L., R, 2012, Business Ethics, Sharpened, Policy Review, vol. 173, pp. 65-78.
Rita, F., A & Albert, S., D. 2013, Business Ethics as an Accreditation Requirement: A
Knowledge Mapping Approach, Business Education & Accreditation, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 32-56.

COMPARATIVE BUSINESS ETHICS &SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 10
Scott, H., 2018, Social Responsibility Resolutions, Journal of Corporation Law, Vol. 43, No. 2,
pp. 231-242.
Stipe, B. 2016. Review of Mary Godwin, Ethics and Diversity in Business Management
Education. A Sociological Study with International Scope, The Journal of Philosophical
Economics, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 734-741.
Tabetha, H., 2015, Ethics and Morality: What Should Be Taught in Business Law? Academy of
Educational Leadership Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2, PP. 24-56.
The new daily. (2018, may). Banks, mortgage brokers, real estate agents considered least ethical:
2018 Ethics Index. (Accessed on 24th September 2018)Available at
https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/consumer/2018/08/17/ethics-index-2018/
Thomas, K., 2012, The Ethics of Employment Relations and Human Resource Management:
Kohlberg's Seven Levels of Morality, New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations (Online),
Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 34-54.
Tipkorn., S., 2014, Corporate Social Responsibility and Leadership: Legal, Ethical, and
Practical Considerations for the Global Business Leader, Journal of Applied Management and
Entrepreneurship, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 132-143.
Wu, K., 2014, Research on Sense of Social Responsibility in China: Looking Back and Looking
Forward, Cross - Cultural Communication, Vol. 10, No. 6, pp. 54-67.