Day 8 - Ethics and Code of Conduct Continue...

Today lecture was a continuation from previous lecture; Ethics and Code of Conduct. Today beginning of the lecture, Mr Eranjan discussed about five steps of ethical analysis. They are as follows,

Step 1 - Identify stakeholders involve in ethical issue and the facts pertaining to the issue.

Step 2 - Define the conflict or dilemma and identify the higher order values involved

Step 3 - Identify the stakeholders and see the impact.

Step 4 - Identify the actions you can take which are reasonable.

Step 5 - identify the potential consequences of your options.

Then Mr Eranjan started on a new topic which was business ethics. Following are some important topics discussed regarding business ethics.

What is business ethics?

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

Characteristics of business ethics

1.      Tells people what they ought to do.

2.      Set of principles or rules.

Concepts of Ethics

There are four concepts of ethics,

1.      Relativism - no universal standard by which morality can be judged since ethics change from country to country.

2.      Egoism - one ought to act in his or her own self-interest.

3.      Utilitarianism - the morality of an action can be determined by its consequences.

4.      Deontologism - actions are not justified by their consequences. Factors other than good outcomes determine the rightness of actions

Before concluding the session, Mr Eranjan quickly went through the final topic which was ethical tests. This topics includes following,

·        Legal Test

·        Benefit Cost Test

·        Light of Day Test

·        Do Unto Others Test

·        Ventilation Test    

Legal test

Reflection of today's lecture

Today was an interesting lecture. I had never learnt about business ethics before and this session just provided me rich information about the topic. Business ethics will be more useful when we enter business environment because it can help us as employees to engage in ethical operations. Overall today session was interesting and I believe that this information might help me some day in my life.