Essay Summary of Ethical and Moral Issues in Business

Business ethics and morals can be significantly different or may overlap in many other ways. Ethics generally applies to the standards of an organizational or social system whereas morals define personal character of each individual involved in the business. Morals are typically unchanging throughout one’s life whereas ethics may change as society and government make changes. An organization generally communicates its business ethics through a code of conduct to the employees of the business whereas family, friends, mentors, and religious leaders ingrain individual morals. Ethical problems may arise when personal morals and business ethics conflict one another. It is then that an individual must make decisions that may place the business at risk or do what he or she believes is the right thing to do. This could mean saving lives and jeopardizing ones employment.

Ethical and Moral Issues

Ethical and moral issues can have significant or subtle difference and even sometimes appear the same. Morals play large part in forming ethics whether business, personal, or social. Individuals who avoid cheating, lying, stealing, and even murder are good morals that most of us share. These same moral principals are applied to our personal, social, and business ethics. However, differences can be found between ethical and moral issues. While it may be ethical to respect other beliefs and religions, it is not considered to be a moral issue. The medical and scientific communities may deem an act ethical while our individual moral standard considers the act to be immoral, as evidence shown in debates about stem cell research, abortion, and testing on animals.

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Personal and Business Ethics

Personal ethics and business ethics differ in that personal relate to one’s own ethics while business ethics are defined for the workplace. Personal ethics are what an individual believes to be true and right while business ethics are determined by an organization and are generally governed by law. Business ethics may also be written to gain public trust and acceptance. Personal and business ethics can be a reflection of each other or even complete opposite. Personal and business ethics may have great conflict with other. One’s personal ethics may believe it is acceptable to date another employee of the business while the business ethics may prohibit this action. Some pharmacists may consider medications such as the birth control pill to be unethical according to their own personal ethics; however the company they work for considers the dispensing of any prescription medication written by a licensed physician to be ethical.

Some may say that individuals place a lower standard on business ethics than they do their own personal ethics. Business ethics have been shown in a negative light for companies such as the Enron and WorldCom. Because of such negative light, businesses are becoming more concerned about their reputation with regards to ethics. “Many of them are establishing high-level ethics committees, drafting codes of ethical conduct, and conducting ethics training programs” (Trevino & Nelson, 2007, p. 8). Employers are also known to hire individuals who possess close personal ethics with the organizations business ethics. This is generally done in the interview process with personality tests. If a potential hire demonstrates personal ethics that do not align with the business ethics, this could pose a high risk for misconduct and potentially place the business at risk.

Ethics, whether personal or business, are the foundation to our relationships with society. “Ethics can determine how we relate to our employers, our employees, our coworkers, our communities, our suppliers, our customers, and one another” (Trevino & Nelson, 2007, p. 19). This is an important part of our lives and each of us has to lie down at night and examine our own actions of the day and determine if we have been ethical toward one another in our personal relationships as well as our business relationships.

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