BUSINESS ETHICS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION COMMERCE ESSAY    1700w

The following document aims at studying Business Ethics in the context of Globalization. In order to do so, let us start with the definitions of the two most important words in the title:

1. Business Ethics

“Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed.”

It is worth stressing that by ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ we mean morally right and wrong as opposed to, for example, commercially, strategically, or financially right or wrong. Moreover, by ‘business’ ethics, we do not mean only commercial businesses, but also government organizations, pressure groups, not-for-profit businesses, charities, and other organizations. For example, questions of how to manage employees fairly, or what constitutes deception in advertising, are equally as important for organizations such as CRY, the University of Mumbai, or the Bhartiya Janata Party as they are for Satyam, P&G, or Infosys. However, given the high profile of ethical issues in relation to commercial businesses, it is these types of businesses that are predominantly focussed on in general.

Business ethics and the law

Having defined business ethics in terms of issues of right and wrong, one might quite naturally question whether this is in any way distinct from the law. Surely, the law is also about issues of right and wrong? This is true, and there is indeed considerable overlap between ethics and the law. In fact, the law is essentially an institutionalization or codification of ethics into specific social rules, regulations, and proscriptions. Nevertheless, the two are not equivalent. Perhaps the best way of thinking about ethics and the law is in terms of two intersecting domains (see Figure). The law might be said to be a definition of the minimum acceptable standards of behaviour. However, many morally con