Business Ethics and

Social Responsibility
Dr. Sanjay Mishra, PhD (BHU)
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are
of the presenter 1
 Business Ethics is
• What is appropriate and what is not- in short or
long term from the business viewpoint …..
• Appropriate in Business is-
• Trust of the customer/party
• Long term relations
• Horizontal rapport
• With a feeling of service to the society
• After a certain level of satisfaction society pays
back to the business

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 Business Ethics/Corporate Ethics
• Business Ethics (also known as Corporate Ethics) is a form
of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical
principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business
environment
• Business ethics has both normative and descriptive
dimensions. As a corporate practice and a career
specialization, the field is primarily normative. Academics
attempting to understand business behavior employ descriptive
methods.
• The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the
interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic
concerns. Interest in business ethics accelerated dramatically
during the 1980s and 1990s, both within major corporations
and within academia. 3
 Ethical Issues in Business
• Adulteration in edible items
• Product Safety/ Unequal Standards
• Product storage and logistics irresponsibility
• Customers as quantity of consumption
• Surrogate Advertising/ Treacherous Campaigns
• Finished accountability after selling the product.
• Less expenditure on social causes/wellbeing
• Environmental issues

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 Genesis
• Ethics come from [Middle English ethik, from Old
French ethique (from Late Latin ḗthica, from
Greek ḗthika, ethics) and from Latin thic (from
Greek ḗthik), both from
Greek ḗthikos, ethical, from ḗthos, character; see s(w)e- in
Indo-European roots.]European meant for character/ manner
or
• 1:
(a) A set of principles of right conduct.
(b)A theory or a system of moral values: "An ethic of service is
at war with a craving for gain" (Gregg Easterbrook).
• 2: Ethics : The study of the general nature of morals and of
the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral
philosophy.
• 3: Ethics : The rules or standards governing the conduct of a
person or the members of a profession: medical ethics. 5
 Major branches
• Meta-Ethics, about the theoretical meaning and
reference of moral propositions and how
their truth-values (if any) may be determined;
• Normative Ethics, about the practical means of
determining a moral course of action.
• Applied Ethics, about how moral outcomes can
be achieved in specific situations.
• Moral Psychology, about how moral capacity or
moral agency develops and what its nature is.
• Descriptive Ethics, about what moral values
people actually abide by.
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Inventory of ethical Issues in Business

• Employee – Employer Relations

• Employee –Employee Relations
• Company- Customer Relations
• Company-Shareholder Relations
• Company- Community /Public
Relations
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 Why talk about Business Ethics?
• For last decade there are evidences that the
frequency related to business ethics violation
increased
• Recently food adulteration in National Capital
region and around came into limelight
• Corporate, Governance, Service Sector Govt.
machinery
• Due to professional lapses, incidences frequently
take shaping and now a frequent phenomena in
India
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 Can we consider?
•“We Will Not lie, Steal or Cheat, No
Tolerate Among Us Anyone Who
Does”
• Which do you think is the tougher
part
• Line 1 or Line 2 ? And Why?

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 Ethics, Economics & Law
• Ethical etiquette is personal but larger in
implications.
• Ethics pays in economic transactions and
strengthens the mutual relations than
anything in business expansion.
• Law is a watchdog, can check when it
sniffs and affect the repercussions not
the ethics straight.
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 Business, Society & Ethics
• It is society that makes the business
sustain, business is a tool to increase the
frequency of economic activities, not to
rule, control or govern the society.
• Exchange based society continued for long in the
past with minimum conflicts than modern
business.
• Physical form of business has less likelihood to
incur crisis related to business than abstract form
of business.

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 UNIVERSAL VALUES : GANDHIAN ETHICS
ISLAAM

BAHAISM
CONFUCIANISM

Satya
CHRISTIANITY Ahinsa JUDAISM
Sarvoday
Aparigrah

BUDDHISM
TAOISM

HINDUISM
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 Gandhian Approach
• He believed a business could and should be
conducted with complete honesty.
• Indeed, a business that was run honestly would be
more successful than one which was not.
• In business as well as personal life he subscribed to
the view : "Honesty is the best policy." A business
person had every right to earn a livelihood from their
business, although if vast income was earned from
the business, the business person should give what
he or she did not need to the community.

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 Trusteeship
• In his theory of trusteeship, Gandhi perceived
business as a form of service to the
community.
• Gandhian approach to business ethics relate
to today as much as to his lifetime.
• Gandhian thought need to go undergo
interpretation because of development the
business has undergone during last 50 years.

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 Gandhi and business ethics
• Business is a way to foster neighborliness, to
bring members of a community together and
a means by which people can love and serve
one another.
• Dr. Stephen Kovey one of world’s leading
management consultants and author of the
best selling book “The Seven habits of Highly
Effective People” says in his book:

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 Mahatma Gandhi said :
• That seven things will destroy us:
• Wealth Without Work
• Pleasure Without Conscience
• Knowledge Without Character
• Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics)
• Science Without Humanity
• Religion Without Sacrifice
• Politics Without Principle

• © 1990 Stephen R. Covey. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

http://www.mkgandhi.org/mgmnt.htm

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 Some case study
• For-Profit Colleges in the US: A Morally
Bankrupt Sector? case study (Case Code:
BECG117)
• BP's Continuing Safety Problems: The Gulf of
Mexico Crisis(Case Code: BECG116)
• Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Revisited after Twenty-
five Years(Case Code BECG115)
• Intel's 'World Ahead' Program - The Baramati
Project in India (Case Code:BECG098)
• http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/Case_Studies.asp?cat=Business%20Ethics
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