Moral Judgement and Business Ethics

Running head: MORAL JUDGEMENT AND BUSINESS ETHICS
Moral judgement and Business Ethics
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1MORAL JUDGEMENT AND BUSINESS ETHICS
As opined by Davies (2016), the intensification of the business competition that the
different firms within the business markets in which they are operational had significantly
shifted the major focus of the modern business firms from the attribute of quality to quantity.
Hahn et al. (2018) are of the viewpoint that the different business firms in order to attain a
higher amount of profitability or financial returns are resorting to the usage of the kind of
business activities or practices which are not immoral or unethical but at the same time
derogatory. However, recent researches clearly reveal the fact that the although the short-term
usage of these unethical practices offer significant financial returns to the firms yet the long-
term usage of the same can adversely affect the profitability of the firms by way of
dissatisfying the customers and also the stakeholders who are related to them (Robertson,
Voegtlin and Maak 2017).
According to Randles and Laasch (2016), the notion that the corporate firms need to
take full responsibility for their business activities or actions as well as the damage that they
are causing to the environment had gained prominence within the contemporary business
world. In addition to these, the emergence of different approaches for the effective
understanding of the framework of business ethics like normative approach, psychological
approach and others clearly indicates the prominence gained by the concerned concept (Chell
et al. 2016). However, the emergence of the psychological understanding of moral judgement
has made the normative approaches to business ethics obsolete and this is perhaps one of the
major reasons why the different firms are increasingly opting for the usage of the
psychological approach. This essay will analyze the manner in which the emergence of the
psychological understandings of moral judgement had made the normative approaches to
business ethics obsolete.
Crane and Matten (2016) have noted that the business ethics or corporate ethics is a
kind of applied or professional ethics that the present-day firms are required to follow. On the

2MORAL JUDGEMENT AND BUSINESS ETHICS
other hand, Ferrell and Fraedrich (2015) have stated that the construct of business ethics
seeks to highlight the different moral or ethical issues that the firms face over the course of
their business activities and also the manner in which they need to resolve them. More
importantly, these ethical issues can emerge on an individual level or corporate level or legal
level for that matter and the business firms need to abide by the theories of ethics as well as
morals for the resolution of the same. Furthermore, the idea that the business firms need to
contribute in an adequate manner towards the improvement of the condition of the
environment, economy as well as the society of the nations in which they are operational had
also gained extensive amount of popularity in the contemporary times (Trevino and Nelson
2016). This becomes apparent from the fact that the firms in their efforts to earn a higher
amount of financial returns resort to the usage of the kind of business practices or activities
which are detrimental from the interests of the stakeholders and also the society or the planet.
Moreover, the prominence gained by the concept of business ethics becomes apparent from
the different approaches like the normative approach, psychological understandings of the
moral judgements and others which are being extensively used within the framework of the
contemporary business world (Chell et al. 2016).
Robertson, Voegtlin and Maak (2017) have noted that the framework of normative
ethics intends to analyze the questions or the issues that the business firms face during their
business operations and also the manner in which they can resolve these issues or questions
through the effective usage of the concepts of ethics and morals. This is important because of
the fact that the contemporary business firms during their business operations face different
kinds of ethical or moral issues, the resolution of which is of paramount importance for the
long-term survival of their firm (Newbert and Craig 2017). However, it is seen that the firms
inevitability end up taking the help of the kind of measures which although enables them to
resolve the issues in the best possible manner yet when analyzed through the specific lens of