Business Ethics and

Social Responsibility

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 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.
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 Ethical Issues in Business
• Adulteration in edible items
• Product Safety/ Unequal Standards
• Product storage and logistics irresponsibility
• Surrogate Advertising/ Treacherous Campaigns
• Finished accountability after selling the product.
• Less expenditure on social causes/wellbeing
• Environmental issues

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 CSR & Business Ethics
• CSR is a subset, part of the larger topic of
business ethics.
• Business ethics is (as a field of study) the study
of the entire range of questions related to
right and wrong in the world of business.
• CSR is, strictly speaking, only about the
responsibilities that corporations (not
individuals) have to society (not individuals).

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• So a company’s responsibilities to a customer
are part of business ethics, but not part of CSR.
• And a company’s responsibilities to an
employee are part of business ethics, but not
part of CSR.
• Likewise, the responsibilities an individual boss
has to her employees, or vice versa, are part of
business ethics, but not part of CSR

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• People tend to think of social responsibility in
generally in terms of environmental impact and giving
back to the community.
• You might think of social responsibility as one slice of
the pie of business ethics.
• Business ethics arguably subsumes social
responsibility, as ethical questions like honesty,
keeping promises, value for employees, cultural
values, and fairness are all issues that run throughout
the organization
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• business ethics focuses on the role
responsibilities of managers and employees as
business agents. It can also take up issues of
corporate conduct.
• Corporate social responsibility, on the other
hand, is more focused on the corporation and
its obligations and behavior to other
stakeholders in the larger social system.

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• CSR is a more narrow construct than business
ethics, touching less on questions of individual
conduct and its personal motivations and
intentions and more on the so-called
corporate "person." 
• CSR focus on what the corporation is "doing"
often raises questions having to do with the
environment, worker rights and sustainability

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• Business ethics carves out somewhat different
territory having to do with issues like honesty,
rights, equity and the exercise of corporate
power.
• CSR can likewise deal with any of these issues,
but usually focuses on the  last one, namely,
the exercise of corporate power.

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 Genesis
• 1: (a) A set of principles of right conduct.
(b) A theory or a system of moral values.
• 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.

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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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 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.

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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
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