lec 4, 5, 6 Flashcards
ethics (54 cards)
Q: Why is ethics important in business and management?
A: Because managers make decisions that significantly impact people’s lives and society, and ethical considerations promote trust, fairness, and long-term success.
Q: When did business ethics begin to gain attention?
A: In the 1970s and 1980s.
Q: What is responsible management?
A: Management that integrates ethics, sustainability, and societal impact into decision-making, aiming for long-term benefits for all stakeholders.
Q: What is an ethical dilemma in a workplace context?
A: A situation where a manager must make a difficult choice between competing values, responsibilities, or outcomes, such as deciding who to fire based on complex personal and professional data.
Q: Why is reflecting on your ethical paradigm important in ethical dilemmas?
A: Because it reveals the values and assumptions guiding your decisions, helping promote responsible and consistent decision-making.
Q: What are ethics?
A: Standards of right and wrong that guide behavior.
Q: What is ethical behavior?
A: Conduct that aligns with accepted moral standards and principles.
Q: How are legality and ethics different?
A: Legal actions may not always be ethical; ethics go beyond laws to consider broader values and moral responsibilities.
Q: What are values and norms?
A: Values are core beliefs; norms are behavioral expectations in specific contexts.
Q: What is cultural relativism in ethics?
A: The belief that what is ethical depends on cultural norms—there is no single universal standard.
Q: What is ethical universalism?
A: The belief that there are universal ethical standards that apply across all cultures.
Q: What is the Free Market view of business ethics (Milton Friedman)?
A: Businesses should focus solely on profit; social spending diverts shareholder value.
Q: What is the Marxist critique of business ethics?
A: Capitalism promotes self-interest and makes unethical behavior systemic and inevitable.
Q: What is the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) perspective?
A: Businesses have responsibilities beyond profit, including social and environmental stewardship.
Q: What examples illustrate corporate ethical challenges?
A: The Rana Plaza collapse, climate change inaction, and deals with unethical regimes like Myanmar’s military.
Q: What is the legitimacy crisis in business?
A: A growing public perception that businesses prioritize short-term profits over ethics and social responsibility.
Q: What is irresponsible management?
A: Management that ignores ethics, harms stakeholders, and prioritizes short-term profits.
Q: What is responsible management according to Hibbert & Cunliffe (2015)?
A: A practice that engages moral reflexivity and balances ethical behavior with organisational goals.
Q: What is reflexivity in responsible management?
A: The ability to question one’s own assumptions and practices to foster ethical change.
Q: What are threshold concepts in responsible management?
A: Key ideas that change how we think and act ethically. They include:
* Troublesome knowledge – Challenges your current beliefs.
* Integrative effects – Help you make new connections.
* Irreversibility – Once learned, hard to unlearn.
* Transformation in action – Leads to behavioral change.
* Boundaries – Encourages reassessment of ethical boundaries.
Q: What is CSR according to Carroll (1999)?
A: Activities that benefit society beyond a business’s legal obligations.
Q: How can CSR benefit a business?
A: By building trust, improving brand image, and ensuring long-term sustainability.
Q: What are the four types of ethical problems in business? Laasch
A: Laasch’s categories often include:
1. Moral laxity
2. Compliance problems
3. No-problem problem
4. Genuine dilemma
Q: How should managers use these categories?
A: To identify and analyze ethical issues in real-world cases.
