Ethics & Business
Situation No. 1: One of your company’s major suppliers is having an annual “Customer Appreciation Golf Outing” which includes a round of golf at an upscale private country club, a box lunch, a hat, and a sleeve of golf balls (with your supplier’s logo on the hat and golf balls), dinner and moderate prizes. Total value: about $400.00. Your boss wants you to go because it’s a chance to get to know the supplier’s personnel as well as your peers in other companies. Discuss and analyze the ethical aspects of this situation.
Situation No. 2: You visit a supplier overseas and find that it is a major polluter of a local river. Amazingly, that doesn’t violate any laws in that country. Discuss and analyze the ethical and socially responsible aspects of this situation.
Situation No. 3: You and your boss followed a long-standing practice of not divulging a bidder’s price to other competing suppliers. Your boss retired and her replacement from the government sector sees things differently; she wants you to divulge suppliers’ prices, the way she did it in governmental situations. She argues such open sharing is the way to get the lowest prices and thereby reduce your company’s costs. Discuss and analyze the ethical aspects of this situation.
Sample Solution
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics, that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations (Tony, 2017). Ethics concern an individual’s moral judgments about right and wrong. Ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility can bring significant benefits to a business. For example, they may: attract customers to the firm’s products, thereby boosting sales and profits (Tony, 2017).
