Understanding Business Ethics

We believe that business students prefer a real world approach. Today's business students like to discuss companies they are familiar with and those companies whose products and services create a familiar surrounding for them in their daily lives. Our goal is to provide a textbook using real world scenarios and situations in examples and cases that provides students with a basic understanding of the issues surrounding business ethics and that provides them with a belief that ethics really matter. Our textbook will present a broad and comprehensive presentation of ethics from an applied perspective and includes chapters on information technology, financial management, marketing, developing countries, stakeholders, the natural environment, human resource issues and strategy. In addition, we will also present information related to the AACSB's recommended topics of the responsibility of business in society, ethical decision making, ethical leadership, and corporate governance. One of the benefits of this textbook is the flexibility it gives the instructor on how he/she presents the material. This textbook can be used at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We believe that case discussions will differ significantly at both levels. At the undergraduate level, we expect that students will focus on the most concrete ideas in the cases. However, at the graduate level, we expect that students will evaluate the cases by integrating their own experiences into the discussions, as well as the more subtle aspects of the chapters and cases. We perceive our book primarily as a stand-alone textbook to be used in a business ethics course, but it can also be used as a complement to other business courses due to the extensive offerings of cases covering a range of issues. The cases in the text are designed to stimulate class discussion on a variety of ethical issues.