Reflection on Business Ethics

This reflection on business ethics explores the importance of ethics in organizations and how it affects the success of a company. It discusses the evolution of ethical issues, the role of stakeholders, and the relationship between ethical culture and relationships. The reflection also highlights the consequences of ethical misconduct and provides insights on how to maintain a healthy working atmosphere.

Running head: REFLECTION ON BUSINESS ETHICS
REFLECTION ON BUSINESS ETHICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The Book Business Ethics has helped me to argue and analyze ethical dimension.
The chapter one of the book specifies the importance of business ethics. The first thing I
learned is the reason for studying about ethics in business. A business ethics is important for
a company that helps to bring substantial profits to a business. An organization’s norms,
values and principles originate from the organizational statements, individuals and also from
the legal system. The factors lead to this study as they are detrimental to a business. It helps
to improve the ethics of an employee or an individual, helps to make effective decisions for
the business that are detailed and complex, this also paves way for people with less
experience make organizational decisions and helps a person to identify and solve any ethical
issue instantly or in a less amount of time.
In this chapter I have learnt the things that fall under misconduct and the evolution of
the misconducts that have evolved with time. The issues like bribery, employee theft,
conflicts, misuse of resources of a company, fraud and harassment fall under misconducts
that are necessary to be addressed in order to sustain a business. The social and ethical
concerns have evolved and changed during the course of time. In 1960’s the issues were
related to the environment, work ethics and usage of drugs. In the 70’s issues like human
rights, covering of mistakes by the company, transparency these issues were raising. Then in
the 80’s illegal contracts, bribes, frauds took place. In the 90’s organizational ethical
misconduct, financial fraud was the main concerns. In the 2000’s with the invention and vast
use of internet cyber crimes became an important issue following with intellectual property
and global issues. Due to these issues there was various business ethics were introduced
during the time to solve the existing problems during their time. These problems paved way
for business ethics that helped build a good reputation of a company and also for the proper
functioning of a company. Proper business ethics help in customer satisfaction, trust and

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loyalty of the investors and employee trust and commitment finally results in profits for an
organization. This is interrelated and is beneficial for everyone who is part of this chain.
In the second chapter, I have learnt about the stakeholders. Their relationship between
them and social responsibility, their orientation in creating Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) and the role of the governance of a corporate in structuring social responsibility and
ethics. The first thing I have leant is about the two types of stakeholders one is the primary
the one that is beneficial for the company and whose resources and supports are needed by
the company like customers, shareholders and employees and the other one is the secondary
who are not related to the company directly like trade associations and media. These
stakeholders have a role to play for the success of a company. The stakeholders foster
decision making and provide resources that are necessary for the long term success of a
company. The stakeholder orientation of a company represents the amount a company looks
to the interest of their relevant stakeholders and attempts in addressing those interests.
Orientation of a strong stakeholder can pave way for competitive advantage a company.
Here I have also learnt about the different steps of social responsibility that are
philanthropic that means to give back something to the society, the next is economic that
means to increase the stakeholder value or health, the next is the legal that means to follow
the government laws and guidelines. These are important for a business to expand. However
there are issues in social responsibility as well like social issues, sustainability, corporate
governance and protection of the customers. These can be a hindrance to the growth of a
company as these are fur crucial points that help a business sustain and grow in the market.
The other thing about this chapter I learnt is about corporate governance and stake
holders. Corporate governance has two types of model one the shareholder model where the
company’s main goal is to maximize the wealth for the owners and the stakeholders and

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develop the system that helps in maintaining the performance to enhance the positive
relationship between the top management of the company and the shareholders. The other
one is the stakeholder model that suggests the accountability of a company to the
shareholders and the stakeholders promoting welfare of a company’s interests and needs. In
this chapter it is assessed that stakeholders have a important role in enhancing a business and
the social responsibility within a business as stakeholders support a company that has proper
functioning and have social responsibility. However, there are views that are put forth by
Friedman who states that stakeholders do not have any important role to play in a business.
In the third chapter I have learnt about the ethical issues in an organization in details
and how the ethical issues relate to integrity, fairness and honesty. It is important and
necessary for a company to be aware of the ethical issues that exist in the company or can
occur in a company. Making strategic decisions and implementing them in order to avoid the
problems is the key. The values that help in identifying issues are honesty, integrity and
fairness. It is important for a business or a company to check whether the products
manufactured in their company are good and sustainable, if there is open communication
within the company to understand and assess internal problems as open communication helps
in teamwork, whether there transparent relationship among the employees and the
management and also among the consumers and the company. The other factors to be
checked are truthfulness that is how true the company is to its consumers as well as the
employees. Equality must be there in a company and employees should be hired because of
their sheer talent and not for any other reason. The other things I have learnt are the details of
the ethical issues that may exist in a company. Misusing company resources like not coming
on time or not working for the time they are entitled to work for the company, using
resources provided by the company for personal work. Abusive behavior in a company means
physical assault or mentally harassing employees, not giving the proper wage on time and

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bullying. The other ethical issue is lying of any sort like lying about the problems that are in
the company and not informing them to the management, lying about being at work and
cracking any joke that is harming anyone. Conflict of interest is another ethical issue that
occurs when one employee’s interest do not match with the organization. Discrimination in
the workplace is a trending topic that people are talking about. There should not be any kind
of discrimination in the workplace in the basis of caste, creed, age, sex, disability, national
origin, religion, marital status and appearance. Sexual harassment is another ethical issue that
has been talked about for a very long time. Unwanted sexual attention falls under this
category. Strict laws have been made in order to avoid these for the protection of the
employees in a company. Fraud falls under ethical issues. Fraud has many different types like
literally false that means while advertising any product the company should not make false
claims of offering something that may not be present, labeling issues which means that false
and ambiguous statements made by companies to promote their products in the market.
Financial misconduct is one of the ethical issues that affect the business in a big way. Illegal
trading and illegal business setups fall under ethical issues. Violation of Intellectual property
rights is an ethical issue specifically in the business that is related to the books, movies and
the music industry. Privacy issues like consumer piracy is another ethical issue. These are the
ethical issues that has been addressed in the chapter in details has helped me find out about
all the ethical issues that may affect the company.
In the next chapter the thing I have learnt is about the role of ethical culture and
relationships. This chapter has helped me in understanding the organizational culture, the
influence of corporate culture on business ethics and how strategic management, leadership
and motivation are related to effective and ethical decision making. The other things that I
have learnt are the types of corporate and organizational cultures. The first type that falls
under this category is Apathetic culture that is the concern for either performance or the

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people. The other is Caring culture; this is to have concern for people but less emphasis given
to performance. Exacting culture is another organizational culture that states that the
company has less concern for the people and more for the performance of the employees.
Integrative culture that is emphasis and concern is put on both the performance and the
people. In this chapter I have learnt about the whistleblowers and laws that have been taken
to ensure the safety of the whistleblowers. The different roles of power to ensure and shape
corporate culture are legitimate power, coercive power, reward power, expert power and
referent power. There are many factors that motivate ethical behavior in a company. The
ability of a senior or a leader in an organization plays a vital role in influencing employees of
a company to behave nicely in order to ensure the business ethics are maintained. After
looking to the basic and survival needs of an employee the organization has to look into the
relatedness needs and the growth needs too. There are different organizational structures that
have been constructed that look into the matters that reside within an organization and also
outside. It is not just the organization’s decision to ensure the business ethics is maintained
but it is the employees own will to maintain the ethics as well. In bureaucratic organizations
there is very limited knowledge of business ethics in an organization. Here people behave a
certain way themselves in order to maintain the balance and work efficiently.
The topic Business Ethics has helped me understand the details about the ethics that
are followed in the company. This has given me an insight about the history of ethics, what is
ethics, when and how it evolved with time. The primary aspect of the learning is how
business ethics helps an organization to achieve their goals. Business ethics was introduced
due to the ethical problems that had been arising in organizations. I have understood the
relation between business ethics and the success of the organization. There are certain ethics
that an organization should maintain for the profit of an organization. Ethics is the overall
behavior of the company that does not only mean the employees but the management should

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follow as well. Ethics like discrimination, sexual harassment, abusive behavior is
unacceptable and this demotivates employees. This might result in employees resigning that
will lead to poor productivity of the company. Poor wage, no recognition also demotivates
employees thus leading to less productivity of work. Other aspects like misuse of
organizational resources are directed at the employees. The employees need to behave
properly and be honest in order to sustain in the company. Default of consumer products is
one of the most important business ethics that needs to be maintained as an organization’s
success is clearly based on the consumers. Disappointed consumers lead to poor sales and
less revenue. Fraud in a company paves way for poor reputation of the company. Poor
employees who engage in activities that are illegal and take bribes are detrimental for both
the organization and themselves. Companies these days have a team of people who ensure
that the rules and regulation that concern the business ethics are followed and maintained
properly. The management assesses problems that may arise and later make rules that may
help to avoid these problems. Here I learned that the people of the organization are a team. It
is the duty of everyone to corporate to ensure the productivity of an organization. It is
important for the organization to assess the internal problems within the organization and
make strategic plans to avoid these problems. The organization is made by the people
working there. Positivity in a work atmosphere to some extent comes from ethical behavior.
A good working environment paves way for better performance thus paves way for the
business to earn profits. Business ethics in an organization are all interrelated. Business ethics
if not maintained then it will lead to a chaos and affect the reputation of a business. The
reputation of a business or a company is important to attract consumers.
Business ethics has helped me gain a lot of knowledge on how to develop a business
and what are the factors that help in maintaining a good organization. It has taught me one of
the key factors that is necessary to ensure peace and harmony in a company and also the good

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work efficiency of a company. The best topic that I liked from these chapters was Chapter 3
that gave me a detailed overview about the business ethics and how the ethics relate to the
factors like integrity, fairness and honesty. It has also made me understand the challenges that
are faced while maintaining ethical issues in an organization. Here I have learnt many new
ethics that are followed by organizations to maintain a healthy working atmosphere in a
company. I have come to know about the mistakes that many employees make that fall under
misconduct. There are many different misconducts that were present that I was unaware of.
This has helped me in a big way as I have learnt the corporate etiquette and the things that are
not acceptable in a company or an organization. This has made me clearly understand that
what are the consequences if the ethical issues mentioned in the chapters occur in an
organization or company. Different issues have different consequences that affect an
organization in a way that later may lead to the difficulty of sustaining and retaining a good
position in the market. I have become well equipped about the topic and when I go and work
in an organization I will be able to follow these ethics that will help me grow morally and
give me a good reputation in a company so that I can achieve my goals in an organization and
help my organization in building a good reputation and generate good revenues. If I ever get
an opportunity to run a business of my own then I would make sure my company regulates
proper business ethics that need to be followed and would make ethics that concerned and
catered to the needs of each and every employee. I would also take measures that would help
to avoid such circumstances so that the employees who work under my company would be
happy and put in a hard work to ensure my company does well.