Business Ethics
, by DeGeorge, Richard T
- ISBN: 9780205731930 | 0205731937
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 11/15/2009
This interesting, comprehensive book about business ethics argues that ethics is the ls"gluers" that makes successful business possible. It allows the reader to see the whole range of issues in business ethics rather than just selected topics. Its focus on internationalization and globalization is important, as it relates facts about this dynamic, growing aspect of corporate business.This book not only covers ethics, it also includes such topics as: management, production, marketing, finance, workersrs" rights, and environmental issues; it enables readers to see how all of the issues presented are interrelated.An excellent resource and reference work for international corporate employees, marketing administrators, and human resource managers and employees.
Richard T. De George is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the International Center for Ethics in Business at the University of Kansas. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University and he has been a research fellow at Yale University, Columbia University, Stanford University, and the Hoover Institution. He was the Charles J. Dirksen Professor of Business Ethics at Santa Clara University in 1986, and a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Business at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland in 1985.
He is the author of over 200 articles and the author or editor of twenty books, including The Ethics of Information Technology and Business (2003); Business Ethics (also available in Japanese, Russian, Serbian and Chinese); and Competing With Integrity in International Business (1993), also translated into Chinese. He has been the President of several academic organizations, including the American Philosophical Association, the Metaphysical Society of America, the Society for Business Ethics, and International Society for Business, Economics, and Ethics. He has given invited lectures on six continents at a great many universities and keynote addresses to a variety of organizations both here and abroad, including such places as Tokyo, Como, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, and Perth. He has been a consultant for Motorola, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City Power and Light, Koch Industries, and General Motors, among others, and is a specialist in international business ethical issues and codes. In 2009 the Society for Business Ethics presented him with a special award “In recognition of a career of outstanding service to the field of business ethics”
In November, 1996, he received an honorary doctorate from Nijenrode University in the Netherlands together with Bill Gates and Nelson Mandela.
Preface xi
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ethics and Business 1
Horatio Alger and Stock Options 1
The Myth of Amoral Business 3
The Relation of Business and Morality 5
Business Ethics and Ethics 9
The Case of the Collapsed Mine 18
Study Questions 20
Moral Reasoning In Business
Chapter 2: Conventional Morality and Ethical
Relativism 21
Purchasing Abroad: A Case Study 21
The Levels of Moral Development 22
Subjective and Objective Morality 24
Descriptive Relativism 26
Normative Ethical Relativism 27
Moral Absolutism 31
Moral Pluralism 32
Pluralism and American Business 33
Pluralism and International Business 33
Pluralism, Business, and the Law 35
Business and Religious Ethics 36
Approaches to Ethical Theory 38
Study Questions 41
Chapter 3: Utility and Utilitarianism 43
An Airplane Manufacturing Case 43
Utilitarianism 43
Act and Rule Utilitarianism 47
Objections to Utilitarianism 50
Utilitarianism and Justice 52
Applying Utilitarianism 53
Utilitarianism and Bribery 56
Study Questions 60
Chapter 4: Moral Duty, Rights, and Justice 61
The Johnson Controls Case 61
Deontological Approaches to Ethics 62
Reason, Duty, and the Moral Law 63
Application of the Moral Law 67
Imperfect Duties, Special Obligations, and Moral Ideals 71
Rights and Justice 73
Study Questions 81
Chapter 5: Virtue Ethics and Moral Reasoning 82
The Case of Dora and Joe 82
Virtue 82
Applying Moral Reasoning 87
Study Questions 97
Chapter 6: Moral Responsibility: Individual and Corporate 98
The Love Canal Case 98
Moral Responsibility 99
Excusing Conditions 100
Liability and Accountability 104
Agent and Role Moral Responsibility 106
The Moral Status of Corporations and Formal Organizations 108
Study Questions 112
Moral Issues in Business
Chapter 7: Justice and Economic Systems 114
The Case of the Two Slaveholders 114
Moral Evaluation of Economic Systems 115
Moral Evaluation of Contemporary Systems 119
Economic Models and Games 120
A Capitalist Model 121
Capitalism and Government 125
A Socialist Model 128
Comparison of Models and Systems 130
Economic Systems and Justice 131
Study Questions 133
Chapter 8: American Capitalism: Moral or Immoral? 134
The Case of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet 134
The American Economic System 136
Relation of the American Government to the American Economic System 138
The Marxist Critique 141
Non-Marxist Moral Critiques of American Capitalism 146
The Moral Defense of the American Free-Enterprise System 148
Non-Socialist Alternatives to Contemporary American
Capitalism 152
Philanthropy 156
Study Questions 157
Chapter 9: The International Business System, Globalization, and Multinational Corporations 159
The WTO and Agriculture: A Case Study 159
Justice and the International Economic System 161
The Globalization of Business 164
Multinational Corporations and Ethics 167
Ethical Guidelines for Multinational Operations 173
Multinationals and Human Rights 175
International Codes 176
Cross-Cultural Judgments, Negotiation, and International Justice 180
Study Questions 183
Chapter 10: Corporations, Morality, and Corporate Social Responsibility 185
The Case of Malden Mills 185
Privately Owned, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses 187
Concept of the Corporation: Shareholder versus Stakeholder 190
Moral Responsibility Within the Corporation 192
Corporate Social Responsibility 198
Corporate Codes 206
Corporate Culture and Moral Firms 208
Study Questions 209
Chapter 11: Corporate Governance, Disclosure, and Executive Compensation 211
The Enron Case 211
Corporate Governance 213
Corporate Disclosure 218
Insider Trading 224
Executive Compensation 233
Study Questions 237
Chapter 12: Finance, Accounting, and Investing 239
The case of Lehman Brothers 239
Mortgages, Risk, and Financial Institutions 241
Corporate Takeovers and Restructuring 249
Accounting 257
Ethical Investing 261
Study Questions 268
Chapter 13: Safety, Risk, and Environmental Protection 270
The McDonald’s Polystyrene Case 270
Corporations, Products, and Services 271
Do No Harm 272
Safety and Acceptable Risk 273
Product Safety and Corporate Liability 276
Strict Liability 277
Production Safety 279
The Transfer of Dangerous Industries to Less Developed Countries 280
Environmental Harm 287
Pollution and Its Control 289
Global Warming and the Kyoto Protocol 294
Study Questions 296
Chapter 14: Whistle-Blowing 298
The Ford Pinto Case 298
Blowing the Whistle 299
Kinds of Whistle-Blowing 300
Whistle-Blowing as Morally Prohibited 303
Whistle-Blowing as Morally Permitted 306
Whistle-Blowing as Morally Required 310
Internal Whistle-Blowing 312
Precluding the Need for Whistle-Blowing 316
Study Questions 317
Chapter 15: Marketing, Truth, and Advertising 319
Case Study: Direct-to-Consumer Drug Advertising 319
The Nestlé Infant Milk Formula Case 321
Marketing 322
Advertising 332
Truth and Advertising 334
Manipulation and Coercion 338
Paternalism and Advertising 340
Prevention of Advertising 342
Allocation of Moral Responsibility in Advertising 343
Study Questions 346
Chapter 16: Workers’ Rights: Employment, Discrimination, and Affirmative Action 348
The Case of the 2008 Presidential Election: The End
of Affirmative Action? 348
Employment-at-Will 349
Rights in Hiring, Promotion, and Firing 351
Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Reverse Discrimination 354
Discrimination 356
Changing Social Structures 361
Equal Employment Opportunity 362
Affirmative Action 364
Reverse Discrimination 367
Balanced or Preferential Hiring 368
Study Questions 374
Chapter 17: Workers’ Rights and Duties Within a Firm 376
Case Study: Drug and Polygraph Testing at Company X 376
The Rights of Employees Within a Firm 377
Employee Civil Rights and Equal Treatment 378
The Right to a Just Wage 381
Privacy, Polygraphs, and Drugs 388
Employee Duties Worker Loyalty and Obedience 395
The Right to Organize: Unions 396
The Right to Strike 399
Study Questions 403
Chapter 18: Workers’ Rights and International Business 405
Nike: A Case Study 405
Child Labor 406
Sweatshops 409
Outsourcing and International Business 412
Migrant and Illegal Workers 413
Discrimination, Corrupt Governments, and Multinationals 417
The Right to Work 422
Study Questions 426
Chapter 19: The Information Age: Property and New Technologies 428
Two Intellectual Property Cases 428
Intellectual Property 431
Property: Information and Software 440
Patents and Pharmaceutical Drugs 451
Study Questions 453
Chapter 20: Information, Computers, the Internet, and Business 455
The Electronic Privacy at ABC Control Case 455
Business and Computers 456
Computer Crime 457
Computers and Corporate Responsibility 464
Computers and Privacy 466
The Changing Nature of Work 475
Study Questions 478
Chapter 21: Global Issues and International Obligations 480
The Case of Merck and Costa Rica 480
Global Issues 481
Famine, Malnutrition, and Moral Obligation 482
Cosmopolitanism and Poverty 488
Property and Allocation of the World’s Resources 490
Global Common Goods 497
Oil and the Depletion of Natural Resources 498
Study Questions 505
Conclusion
Chapter 22: The New Moral Imperative for Business 507
The End of an Era: A Case Study 507
The Changing Business Mandate 509
Quality of Work Life 513
The Role of Government 517
Corporate Democracy and the New Entrepreneur 519
Building a Good Society 520
Study Questions 522
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