Business Ethics: How to play by the rules of the Game

1
Business Ethics How to play by the rules of the
Game

• Business as a game?
• How business dealings resemble a game
• Competition fused with fairness and good
  sportsmanship
• Competition as framing zero-sum games
• Knowledge of strategies/positions
• Non-zero sum games as team sports
• Shared visions and goals
• Cooperation
• Breakdown of competitive thinking

2
Business Ethics

• How Business Dealings do not resemble games
• Idea of game theory
• Games limit, restrict, define, and isolate
• Business is fused with everyday life experiences,
  including values and morals
• Must consider alternate solutions, acknowledge
  risk and certainty

3
Business Ethics

• Business Ethics Personal Values
• Character
• Integrity as a necessity
• Social responsibility
• Trust as an essential element established
  through standards of morals and values

4
Business Ethics and Personal Values

• The American Work Ethic
• Drives our need for the good life
• Constantly evolves
• Robert Solomons consideration of work ethic
  only recently has the term work ethic been
  associated with a sense of dignity to work as an
  end in itself, rewarding, and enjoyable.
• Clashes between personal values and business
  values
• Pressure to conform to business norms of
  competition
• Need for guidelines

5
Business Ethics and Discrimination

• Affirmative Action
• Raes three positions
• Stereotyping
• Is there a middle ground?
• Legal impacts

6
Business Ethics and Discrimination

• Women in the workforce
• Scott Raes idea of perceptual bias in the
  workforce
• Impact of visibility
• Issues surrounding sexual harrassment

7
Business and Moral Decision-Making

• Scott Raes Moral Model for making Decisions in
  the World of Business
• Gather the facts
• Determine the Ethical Issues
• Bearing Principles on the Case
• List Alternatives
• Compare Alternatives with Principles
• Weigh Consequences
• Make a decision

8
Business Ethics

• Which moral philosophy best suits the business
  world in making ethical decisions?
• Consideration of natural law theory and concept
  of utility
• Acts have in them a moral goodness or moral
  baseness
• Known to us through right reason a priori
• Must also work to provide the greatest happiness
  for the greatest number of people involved
  (principle of utility)
• Acts have no inherent moral value only results
  count
• Both moral philosophies are reflected in the
  moral model