Business Ethics Examination - Student Name - University Name

This document presents a comprehensive solution to a business ethics examination. The solution addresses key concepts such as moral management, ethical principles including consequentialism and duty, and the ethical implications of consumer surveillance. It explores product safety responsibilities, employer duties concerning employee health and safety, and the concept of ethical relativism. Furthermore, the examination delves into corporate governance measures and the causes and solutions for environmental degradation. Case studies, including the Rana Plaza incident and Nestle's environmental considerations, are analyzed to illustrate ethical dilemmas in practice. The solution provides a detailed understanding of business ethics principles and their application in real-world scenarios.

Running head: EXAMINATION
EXAMINATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1EXAMINATION
Table of Contents
Part A...............................................................................................................................................2
Answer to Question 1..................................................................................................................2
Answer to Question 2..................................................................................................................2
Answer to Question 3..................................................................................................................3
Answer to Question 4..................................................................................................................3
Answer to Question 5..................................................................................................................4
Answer to Question 6..................................................................................................................5
Answer to Question 7..................................................................................................................5
Answer to Question 8..................................................................................................................6
Part B...............................................................................................................................................7
Answer to Question 9..................................................................................................................7
Answer to Question 10................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

2EXAMINATION
Part A
Answer to Question 1
Moral manager can be rightfully defined as a manager who is involved in the engagement
of the moral behavior and stands as an ethical example in front of the different employees of an
organization. The moral manager can be stated to be the excellent prototype for moral leadership
and states that the best way in which the ethical business can be built is by the knowledge
sharing process which comes from the moral manager. According to Archie, Jill and Ann (2018),
the managers are practical and have started to deal with ethical as well as social concerns to
manage the different business functions as present. These managers have been able to deal with
the unmanageable concerns and have been able to ensure that the balance is remained. Bowie
(2017), states that moral management as portrayed by the different managers can be stated to be
the first example of an ethical behavior which guides the different members of the firm. The
ethical behavior can be stated to be the manner in which the different members of the society
think about values. The moral managers reflect ethical behavior which helps in promoting
principles like fairness, equality, diversity and dignity.
Answer to Question 2
The Ethics principle can be rightfully stated to be those principles which go a long way in
assisting the different individuals and businesses to take certain decisions based on this they will
easily able to decide upon their actions. The two basic ethics principles which will be discussed
are the principles of consequentialism and duty. According to Crane and Matten (2016),
consequentialism can be stated to be the normative theory of ethics which states that not the
actions but the consequences of the actions need to be examined for any judgement and that a
morally correct action can be considered to be correct if it reflects a good outcome. The second

3EXAMINATION
principle of ethics is based on duty. This is often known as deontological ethics and according to
Creyer (1997), this ethical principle is rather contrary to the former one whereby the basis of
judgement of an action is decided on the basis of the morality of an action which prove it right or
wrong under rules rather than on the basis of their consequences.
Answer to Question 3
According to Trevino and Nelson (2016), consumer surveillance can be stated to be the
monitoring and recording of the activities of the different people`s activities as well as the data
either when the purchase or shop physically or conduct their shopping online. This consumer
surveillance can be considered to be a common aspect with respect to the advertising and the
marketing whereby the data of the customers is often shared with the third parties. This activity
tends to use the different information on the consumer like the age, gender, location, level of
education and others and is then aligned with the activities they conduct online. The physical
location of the different users are also tracked and the third parties design the products based on
the same. Many people often view this perspective as a violation of the ethical as well as the
privacy principles whereby the different customers who are being targeted often feel that this
surveillance is an unethical principle which is eyeing their activities (Velasquez & Velazquez,
2002). Moreover, although they are treated as objects, this process is unfair and can be passed as
general spying by the different members of the public and may be misused in order to harm these
individuals and is considered to be against the ethics of technology.
Answer to Question 4
The product is considered to be a critical part of an organization and with respect to this
the organization needs to ensure that they are required to take the essential duty and
responsibility of ensuring that the safety of the products is maintained accordingly. Hence, it can

4EXAMINATION
be considered to be the responsibility of the business to ensure that the product is safe for the
consumption of the different consumers and that they warrant the product. However, due to
profitability of the businesses, the organizations often limit the safety considerations of the
product with consideration to the cost of the product. If the margin of the safety needs to be
increased, they often consider it twice due to the budgetary considerations. However, the
business needs to ensure that as a seller it owes certain consumer rights to the different
consumers which holds them responsible for not ensuring the safety of the different products
(Solomon, 1992).
As a business owner, the seller holds the ethical responsibility of providing clear and
accurate information regarding the use of the product and their packaging so that the products are
not misleading or may be used in the wrong manner. Hence, product safety as per the Consumer
rights is the responsibility of the seller.
Answer to Question 5
As an employer, there are several duties and obligations which they hold and under the
law, the employers are responsible for the health as well as the safety of the employees. There
are certain broad guidelines present which applies to the employers in regard to the health and
safety of the employees. According to Stark (1993), it thereby lies the duty of the employer to
ensure that it looks out to improve the overall health of all employees associated with the
business. This measure can be ensured by seeing to it that the employees are largely protected
from any component which may cause harm to them and to effectively control any risk which
might provide them with injury and other safety concerns. Hence, as a measure, as stated by
Solomon (1992), it lies the duty of the employers to undertake continuous risk assessment in
order to ensure that such a scenario does not arise and often undertake consultation to ensure the

5EXAMINATION
same. Various laws like the Health and Safety Information for Employees Regulations (HSIER)
suggest the employers to provide sufficient instructions to the employees in every activity to
ensure safety.
Answer to Question 6
According to Rossouw and Van Vuuren (2017), ethical relativism can be described as a
theory which states that morality may be considered to be relative with respect to the norm of
culture. This means that an action can be considered to be right or wrong one depending on the
moral norms which are followed in the particular society where the culture is practiced at large.
This same practice may be considered to be correct in one culture ad can be considered to be
unethical in another society. With respect to the ethical relativism there does not exist a
particular action which may be considered to be morally right or wrong. However, many critics
do not believe that the particular ethical relativism theory can be considered to be right or wrong.
According to many ethicists, this theory needs to be rejected as the fundamental principles of the
different societies are taken to be one. For instance, killing one`s parents after a certain age is
moral because afterlife is good for them. However, such a practice would be considered to be
unethical in the other societies as they have a duty to look after the parents. Other philosophers
must also believe that it is not correct because of the individual moral beliefs (Post et al., 2002).
The different philosophers are often under the belief that although it is incorrect but the values
and morals of the different societies need to be respected as it is influenced by the culture and
before an examination into the same, it should be the duty of the philosopher to examine the
same.

6EXAMINATION
Answer to Question 7
Corporate governance forms an essential part of the organization and with respect to this
it lies the duty of the company to take considerable measures to ensure that they are able to
improve on their corporate governance for a long period of time. The different measures which
may be adopted by them are given as follows:
1. Ensuring that the good governance not only comes from the compliance and regulations
but from the engagement of the employees in the different actions.
2. The board also needs to have an active role in the formation of the strategy which will
help in ensuring long term success.
3. The performance of the organization needs to be monitored regularly and any problems
being faced need to be solved (Pearson, 2017).
4. Ensuring that the different directors have the adequate information which would assist
them to take adequate decisions.
5. Additionally, the organization needs to ensure that they are able to build an effective
governance infrastructure which will help them to achieve their overall goals.
Answer to Question 8
The environmental degradation can be stated to be the disintegration or the deterioration
of the environment through the business consumption of various harmful assets by the business.
The different causes are as follows:
1. Land disturbance: The losing out of the greenery due to the formation of various factories
and other such other development aspects have led to land disturbance.
2. Pollution: The different factories often emit smoke which can be considered to be
harmful for the firm.

7EXAMINATION
3. Deforestation: Deforestation may be caused by cutting of the trees to fulfill the
requirements of the business (Nyssens, Le Polain & Perilleux, 2014).
The solution to resolve this is by following sustainability. Sustainability can be stated to
be a practice which will help the business in ensuring that the business not only aims to fulfill the
needs of the present but ensures that the requirements of the future generation is also fulfilled.
With respect to this, it can be stated that if the firm follows sustainable practices it will be able to
resolve the environmental degradation caused by it.
Part B
Answer to Question 9
Very often the different companies do not seem to take the employee welfare as a
consideration of moral concern and are ultimately concerned about the profits which they would
undertake. As the competition in the business segment has been increasingly considerably, it also
becomes important for the different business organizations to ensure that they are able to combat
against pricing wars (Mill, 2016). The Rana Plaza case is a typical example of the manner in
which the giant organizations often in consideration of the outsourcing of the work to the
cheaper companies tend to exploit the cheap labor and do not set and considerable measures
which will then assist in ensuring that the different business enterprises and the employees would
remain safe at large. However, it needs to be a concern of the multinationals to be able to ensure
that they are successfully able to look after and set various standards which will assist them in
forming safety measures for the different employees (Goodpaster, 1991). Hence, outsourcing to
the cheap labor countries can be only considered to be a good measure only if the corporations
take responsible attempts. After the Rana Plaza, various countries have set out certain measures
which would assist them in ensuring that the employees stay safe. This attempt has been

8EXAMINATION
continuing to take place which can be considered to be genuine in nature and also helps to
improve the overall image of the firm.
Answer to Question 10
The given case study on Nestle highlighted the fact that as the environmental
considerations have increased considerably, the various NGOs and other firms like Green Peace
have taken considerable measures in order to ensure that even they are taking adequate
marketing steps to change the decisions of the different consumers at large. Hence, although it
may not be the fault of a particular company, it needs to be ensured it lies the duties of the
different companies who make of the perishable resources to consider the overall welfare of the
firm at large (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). If this is not considered to be a serious matter it may
ending up spoiling the overall disruption that exists in a business environment. In the case of
KitKat, although the company contributes least to the environmental degradation it can be stated
that this company can had been targeted by the Greenpeace (Donaldson, 1989). Hence, in order
to improve the particular issue that exists, the different businesses need to ensure that instead of
taking the legal route they are successfully able to instead amend their ways and react quickly to
improve the overall scenario. Social media can be used as a channel to improve the image of the
firm and in addition to this the companies also need to take up considerable measures which
would assist towards the overall environmental conservation.

9EXAMINATION
References
Archie B. C, Jill A. B & Ann K. B, (2018). Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability
& Stakeholder Management ISBN 9781305959828 Edition 10, Cengage Learning
Australia Pty Ltd
Bowie, N. E. (2017). Business ethics: A Kantian perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Creyer, E. H. (1997). The influence of firm behavior on purchase intention: do consumers really
care about business ethics?. Journal of consumer Marketing, 14(6), 421-432.
Donaldson, T. (1989). The ethics of international business.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson
Education.
Goodpaster, K. E. (1991). Business ethics and stakeholder analysis. Business ethics quarterly,
53-73.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. In Seven Masterpieces of Philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Nyssens, M., Le Polain, M., & Perilleux, A. (2014). The relevance of the common goods
approach to examine social enterprise-Insights from Ostrom to the SE field. In The
Fourth IAP-Day-From common goods to social banking: sharing theories and field
analyses.

10EXAMINATION
Pearson, R. (2017). Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the
idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.
Post, J. E., Lawrence, A. T., Weber, J., & SJ, J. W. (2002). Business and society: Corporate
strategy, public policy, ethics. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Rossouw, D., & Van Vuuren, L. (2017). Business ethics. Oxford University Press.
Solomon, R. C. (1992). Ethics and excellence: Cooperation and integrity in business.
Stark, A. (1993). What's the matter with business ethics?. Harvard business review, 71(3), 38-40.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do
it right. John Wiley & Sons.
Velasquez, M. G., & Velazquez, M. (2002). Business ethics: Concepts and cases (Vol. 111).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.