Analyzing some Business Ethics Case Studies

Abstract

Ethics consists of the standards of behavior to which we hold ourselves in our personal and professional lives. It establishes the levels of honesty, empathy, and trustworthiness and other virtues by which we hope to identify our personal behavior and our public reputation. In our personal lives, our ethics sets norms for the ways in which we interact with family and friends. In our professional lives, ethics guides our interactions with customers, clients, colleagues, employees, and shareholders affected by our business practices. Should we care about ethics in our lives? In our practices in business and the professions? That is the central question we will examine in this article. Our goal is to understand why the answer is yes. Ndedi (2020) explains that ethics refers to a set of rules that describes acceptable conduct in society. Ethics serve as a guide to moral daily living and helps us judge whether our behavior can be justified. In other words, ethics refers to society’s sense of the right way of living our daily lives. It does this by establishing rules, principles, and values on which we can base our conduct. The concepts most directly associated with ethics are truth, honesty, fairness, and equity. While ethics is a societal concern, it is of critical importance to the professions that serve society. Because professionals such as physicians, attorneys, engineers, and property and facility managers provide services that affect our welfare, they develop professional codes of ethics that establish professional standards for behavior. This article will be discussing some business ethics case studies.