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- Business Ethics Research Paper Topics
Overview of Business Ethics
Business ethics are considered a key area of study in business school. This is because there is extensive debate on the importance of business ethics in the business world.
Such debate is founded on moral theories that business ethicists more often use to explore the different interests that would make businesses act ethically.
To understand the entailed interests, it is necessary to establish what business ethics encompass.
Per se, business ethics could be defined as:
“Form of professional or applied ethics that explore different ethical principles as well as ethical and moral issues that come up within the business environment”.
Accordingly, this understanding is critical when exploring different business ethics research paper topics.
Areas for Business Ethics Research
Note that writing a business research paper is most likely to be a requisite to graduation in business school.
That said, your graduation assignment could for example require that you produce either a research paper on local business conduct or an international business ethics research paper.
Note that when it comes to business ethics as a research area, you have to examine different domains of business operations for appropriate business research paper topics .
Such domains may encompass:
1. Social Medial Marketing
This an important area to explore particularly for controversial business ethics topics. The social media has become a major marketing platform and controversial as well.
As such, you could seek to evaluate different issues involved in social media marketing, including false marketing or even marketing of regulated products.
2. Workplace Diversity
Although it is an area that has been accorded extensive attention, workplace diversity still raises significant ethical dilemma.
It can be a source of controversial business ethics topics especially due to the continued immigration and labor issues associated with the immigrants.
3. Customer Data Usage
This is another area of interest when it comes to generating business research topics. Within the contemporary environment, customer data has been used in all sorts of ways.
Accordingly, you could decide to examine the arising ethical issues or the approaches businesses should adopt when acquiring and using customer data.
4. Pricing Factors
Pricing is also an area you could explore for potential business research topics. This could examine the different key considerations in product or service pricing approaches.
In this, you could explore the different implications and importance of business ethics in pricing within the modern business environment.
5. Corporate Social Responsibility
This is another viable area to explore for different business ethics research paper topics. It is evident that CSR has become quite central to business operations across the globe.
As such, CSR could be an interesting area to explore for topics for your international business ethics research paper.
6. Product Safety
You could choose to examine the numerous concerns arising in the area of product safety. This may look at the entailed legal requirements and scientific knowledge.
Although this may be a little more inclined towards the history of business ethics, you could look for emerging issues within the modern business environment.
7. Workplace Safety
This is also an area you could focus on when looking for suitable business research topics. Workplace safety is of significant concern for organizations.
Note that you could also explore the history of business ethics in relation to workplace safety.
8. Bribery and Corruption
Bribery and corruption are at the core of business ethics and practices. Accordingly, you could focus on topics seeking to evaluate the prevalence, form, consequences, and corrective approaches.
This could be for both local and international organizations.
9. Commercial Interactions
There are many ethical concerns in the area of commercial transactions for all business enterprises. This makes it a viable area for business research topics.
In this, you could opt to focus on the interactions between businesses and other enterprises or businesses with their customers.
10. Employee Issues
This is another important area to consider for business ethics research paper topics. The modern work environment has brought up issues in areas such as remote working, employee ownership, etc.
You can explore the ethics relating to these issues.
For your research paper, you can explore the above areas for viable ideas on business ethics research paper topics.
Note that there are many other areas that could be studied depending on the issues you are interested in.
Some of these areas usually focus on the history of business ethics or controversial business ethics topics.
Examples of Business Ethics Research Paper Topics
After determining the area of your study interest, it is time to go ahead and find the exact topics to study.
That said, some of the business ethics research paper topics you can explore include:
1. Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) attributed to excessively high prices and fees charged by companies?
2. The role of ethical conduct among business managers in the success of a business enterprise.
3. The impact of false advertisement practices on customer trust levels.
4. The effects of gender bias and discrimination on employee performance within an organization.
5. The role of ethics in employment practices adopted by institutions of higher learning.
6. Challenges facing adoption of ethical business practices requisite in the development of sustainable tourism.
7. The relationship between unethical decision making and business failure/ bankruptcy.
8. The impact of a company’s poor environmental management on customer trust and loyalty.
9. The interaction and conflict between business research studies and publication incentives and objectives.
10. The results of the profit motive on product quality for an organization.
11. The impacts of exploitation of construction industry workers on the society.
12. The utility of business ethics theory taught in higher learning within the practical business environment.
13. Approach towards ethics in publishing business in sponsorship authoring deals.
14. The application of ethics in decision making within the online business environment.
15. An analysis of the way business ethics are taught in institution of higher learning between developing and developed countries.
16. Effective application of business ethics within the stock exchange market in the US.
17. The relationship between code of ethics adopted by business enterprises and cultivation of employee trust.
18. Understanding the code of ethics for business from the perspective of a manager.
19. This history of ethics in decision making among business enterprises.
20. The relationship between the gift giving behavior and business ethics among pharmaceutical companies.
21. Analysis of the different challenges business enterprises face in ethical decision making.
22. The role of culture in defining the business ethics adopted by immigrants.
23. The relationship between code of ethics and the sales force behavior among pharmaceutical companies.
24. Business ethical codes that should govern trade associations.
25. Building organizational structures that foster the adoption of ethical conduct within the business environment.
26. Effective business ethical approaches towards CSR among automobile manufacturing companies.
27. The role of ethics in effective interaction between business organizations and the civil society.
28. Factors that foster the development of unethical conduct within the workplace.
29. Business oriented factors to consider when making ethical decisions within a business environment.
30. The different types of ethical dilemmas business enterprises face when making decisions in the modern society.
31. Elements for building a culture of ethical responsibility common between the employer and the employees.
32. The psychological aspect of corporate ethics among employees.
33. The nature of corporate and white color criminal conduct in the modern business environment.
34. Approaches in ensuring that the ethics adopted by an organization effectively reflect the reality in the business world.
35. Management of sexual harassment within the workplace environment.
36. Inculcating common work ethics among employees from different cultural backgrounds.
37. Factors to consider when developing the environmental policy of multinational companies in different countries.
38. The role of ethics in effective corporate governance.
39. Individual professional conduct in relation to work ethics, ethical behavior, and crisis management within the work environment.
40. The role of ethics in prevention and management of conflicts within the business environment.
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What’s the Matter with Business Ethics?
- Andrew Stark
It’s not that managers dislike the idea of doing the right thing …
With the recent boom in business ethics comes a curious irony: the more entrenched the discipline becomes in business schools, the more bewildering—and even off-putting—it appears to actual managers.
The more entrenched the discipline becomes in business schools, the more bewildering it appears to managers.
Signs of the boom are everywhere. Over 500 business-ethics courses are currently taught on American campuses; fully 90 % of the nation’s business schools now provide some kind of training in the area. There are more than 25 textbooks in the field and 3 academic journals dedicated to the topic. At least 16 business-ethics research centers are now in operation, and endowed chairs in business ethics have been established at Georgetown, Virginia, Minnesota, and a number of other prominent business schools.
And yet, I suspect that the field of business ethics is largely irrelevant for most managers. It’s not that they are hostile to the idea of business ethics. Recent surveys suggest that over three-quarters of America’s major corporations are actively trying to build ethics into their organizations. Managers would welcome concrete assistance with primarily two kinds of ethical challenges: first, identifying ethical courses of action in difficult gray-area situations (the kind that Harvard Business School Lecturer Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. has described as “not issues of right versus wrong,” but “conflicts of right versus right”); and, second, navigating those situations where the right course is clear, but real-world competitive and institutional pressures lead even well-intentioned managers astray.
The problem is that the discipline of business ethics has yet to provide much concrete help to managers in either of these areas, and even business ethicists sense it. One can’t help but notice how often articles in the field lament a lack of direction or poor fit with the real ethical problems of real managers. “Business Ethics: Where Are We Going?” asks one title. “Is There No Such Thing as Business Ethics?” wonders another. My personal favorite puts it wryly, “Business Ethics: Like Nailing Jello to a Wall.”
What is the matter with business ethics? And more important, what can be done to make it right? The texts reviewed here shed light on both questions. They point to the gulf that exists between academic business ethics and professional management and suggest that business ethicists themselves may be largely responsible for this gap.
Far too many business ethicists have occupied a rarified moral high ground, removed from the real concerns and real-world problems of the vast majority of managers. They have been too preoccupied with absolutist notions of what it means for managers to be ethical, with overly general criticisms of capitalism as an economic system, with dense and abstract theorizing, and with prescriptions that apply only remotely to managerial practice. Such trends are all the more disappointing in contrast to the success that ethicists in other professions—medicine, law, and government—have had in providing real and welcome assistance to their practitioners.
Does this mean that managers can safely dismiss the enterprise of business ethics? No. In the past year or two, a number of prominent business ethicists have been taking stock of their field from within. Much like managers trying to reengineer their companies’ business processes, they have called for fundamental changes in the way the enterprise of business ethics is conducted. And they are offering some promising new approaches of value to both academic business ethicists and professional managers.
What follows, then, is a guide to business ethics for perplexed managers: why it seems so irrelevant to their problems and how it can be made more useful in the future.
Why Should Managers Be Ethical?
To understand the gap between business ethics and the concerns of most managers, it pays to recall how managers and management academics thought about business ethics before it became a formal discipline. Indeed, much of the research and writing in contemporary business ethics can be understood as a disgruntled reaction to the way ethical issues usually were addressed at business schools—in particular, to the traditional answers to the fundamental question: Why should managers be ethical?
Starting well before World War II and culminating in the 1960s and 1970s, the dominant approach to the moral dimension of business was a perspective that came to be known as corporate social responsibility . Largely reacting to neoclassical economics, which holds that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize its immediate bottom line subject to only the most minimal constraints of the law, advocates of corporate social responsibility argued that ethical management requires more than merely following the dictates of the law or signals of the market, the two institutions that otherwise guide business behavior. Rather, ethical management is a process of anticipating both the law and the market—and for sound business reasons.
For example, when managers voluntarily undertake socially responsible actions beyond the bare legal minimum required (in environmental protection, say, or antidiscrimination policy), they tend to forestall punitive social regulation. As corporate scholar E. Merrick Dodd, Jr. stated in a 1932 Harvard Law Review article, the purpose of ethical management is “to catch any new spirit” and embody it in voluntary standards “without waiting for legal compulsion.” Or as Berkeley professor Edwin Epstein more recently and succinctly put it, “being ethical heads off the law.”
A Manager’s Guide to Business Ethics
“The Cost of a Corporate Conscience,” W. Michael Hoffman (Business and Society Review Spring 1989).
“Do Good Ethics Ensure Good Profits?” a Symposium (Business and Society Review Summer 1989).
Business Ethics: The State of the Art, edited by R. Edward Freeman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics, R. Edward Freeman and Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988).
“New Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility,” Norman Bowie (Business Horizons July–August 1991).
“Corporate Social Responsibility: A Critical Approach,” R. Edward Freeman and Jeanne Liedtka (Business Horizons July–August 1991).
Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business, Robert C. Solomon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Business Ethics Quarterly (January 1991).
“Virtue and Role: Reflections on the Social Nature of Morality,” Lisa Newton (Business Ethics Quarterly July 1992).
“Shrewd Bargaining on the Moral Frontier: Toward a Theory of Morality in Practice,” J. Gregory Dees and Peter C. Cramton (Business Ethics Quarterly April 1991).
Good Intentions Aside: A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Ethical Problems, Laura L. Nash (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1990).
The social responsibility approach not only took an expansive view of the law but also urged managers to take an expansive view of the market. In the short term, ethical behavior may prove costly to a company’s bottom line. But according to the advocates of corporate social responsibility, ultimately the market will reward such behavior. “In general, socially responsible deliberation will not lead management to decisions different from those indicated by long-range profit considerations,” the management scholar Wilbur Katz wrote in 1950. Or in the by-now famous words of former SEC Chairman John Shad: “Ethics pays.”
Most managers were able to assimilate this response to the question “Why be ethical?” fairly easily under the heading enlightened self-interest . Indeed, by now the tenets of corporate social responsibility have become conventional wisdom in managerial circles. Organizations like the Business Roundtable publish studies with titles like “Corporate Ethics: A Prime Business Asset.” And top corporate executives regularly use the logic of enlightened self-interest, reflected in the statement by former Dow Chairman Robert W. Lundeen: “We found that if we were not running our business in the public interest, the public [would] get back at us with restrictive regulations and laws.”
It was one thing, however, for social responsibility advocates to provide a broad and appealing answer to the question: Why should managers be ethical? It was quite another to answer the obvious follow-up: How can managers determine the ethical course in any particular situation and stick to it in the face of competing pressures?
To address this question, social responsibility advocates set out in the 1970s to create a brand-new managerial discipline: business ethics . One idea was to bring experts in moral philosophy into the business schools. Training in moral philosophy would give business ethicists the analytical frameworks and conceptual tools necessary for making fine-grained ethical distinctions and discerning the appropriate course in difficult ethical situations. Once “retooled” in management, the moral philosophers could apply their sophisticated frameworks to the day-to-day moral problems that managers face.
However, things have not worked out quite the way traditional advocates of corporate social responsibility had hoped. Largely because of their background in moral philosophy, a discipline that tends to place a high value on precisely those kinds of experiences and activities where self-interest does not rule, many business ethicists found the precepts of corporate social responsibility profoundly dissatisfying. As a result, they have spent a great deal of scholarly time and energy tearing down the social responsibility position in order to erect their own. Indeed, far from taking a step closer to the real-world moral problems of management, several prominent business ethicists have chosen to reopen the fundamental question: Why should managers be ethical?
The Myopia of Moral Philosophy
Business ethicists have two basic problems with the enlightened self-interest answer to the question of why managers should be ethical. First, they disagree that ethical behavior is always in a company’s best interest, however enlightened. “There are no vanilla solutions,” writes Bentley College ethicist W. Michael Hoffman in his article, “The Cost of a Corporate Conscience.” “To behave ethically can cost dearly.” In other words, ethics and interests can and do conflict.
Second, they object that even when “doing good” is in the company’s best interest, acts motivated by such self-interest really can’t be ethical. Moral philosophy tends to value altruism, the idea that an individual should do good because it is right or will benefit others, not because the individual will benefit from it. For many business ethicists, motivation can be either altruistic or self-interested, but not both. A participant in a symposium called “Do Good Ethics Ensure Good Profits?” (recently sponsored by Business and Society Review ) put it as follows: “To be ethical as a business because it may increase your profits is to do so for entirely the wrong reason. The ethical business must be ethical because it wants to be ethical.” In other words, business ethics means acting within business for nonbusiness reasons.
Morality can often mean acting within business for nonbusiness reasons.
Each of these criticisms has its kernel of truth. Clearly, ethics and interests can conflict. Take the example of a racially segregated company in the South during the 1930s. Remaining racially segregated was ethically wrong. Yet active desegregation would have flown in the face of then-prevailing public norms and most likely would have been penalized severely by market forces over both the short and long terms.
When ethics and interest do not conflict, business ethicists have a point too. Certainly, there is ethical value in doing the right thing because it is right, not just because it serves one’s interest. And in the real world of business, altruism is one of the many motivations that do shape managers’ behavior.
However, the problem is that many business ethicists have pushed both these lines of reasoning to extremes. In the case of the potential conflict between ethics and interests, the fundamental issue for a manager is not whether such conflicts sometimes (or even frequently) occur, but rather how he or she handles them when they occur. Business ethicists have offered too little help with this problem so far. Often, they advance a kind of ethical absolutism that avoids many of the difficult (and most interesting) questions.
For example, in Business Ethics: The State of the Art, a recent volume of essays by leading business ethicists, edited by R. Edward Freeman, University of Kansas ethicist Richard T. DeGeorge states, “If in some instance it turns out that what is ethical leads to a company’s demise,” then “so be it.” A participant in the Business and Society Review symposium echoes this sentiment by arguing that if ethical actions mean that a company’s profits are reduced, then “it must accept such a trade-off without regret.” Managers would be hard-pressed not to view such prescriptions as restatements of the problem, rather than as workable solutions.
In some cases, absolutism leads business ethicists to devalue such traditional business interests as making a profit or succeeding in the marketplace in favor of supposedly more important ethical demands. Take the example of one of the major works in the field, published in 1988: Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics, by R. Edward Freeman and Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr. According to the authors, no corporation is truly ethical unless it has banished all forms of external motivation for employees. What do Freeman and Gilbert mean by external motivation? Nothing less than traditional managerial tools such as authority, power, incentives, and leadership. Relying on such motivational tools, they argue, is just a sophisticated form of coercion and therefore “morally wrong.” In order to be ethical, companies have to make sure that employees’ work tasks are compatible with their own personal “projects,” thus making external motivation unnecessary. While acknowledging that their view is not “practical,” Freeman and Gilbert insist that it is not “optional.” If corporations “cannot be run along the lines we propose,” they argue, then “we would prefer to give up the idea of the corporation.”
Such views may resonate with some moral philosophers but are of little help to managers. Like it or not, corporations do exist, and most managers work in them. These managers still lack solutions for the basic problem of how to balance ethical demands and economic realities when they do in fact conflict.
Surely, business ethicists are not pure moral theorists who needn’t worry about the practicality of their prescriptions. Any business ethics worthy of the name should be an ethics of practice. But this means that business ethicists must get their hands dirty and seriously consider the costs that sometimes attend “doing the right thing.” They must help managers do the arduous, conceptual balancing required in difficult cases where every alternative has both moral and financial costs.
Any business ethics worthy of the name should be an ethics of practice. But this means that business ethicists must get their hands dirty.
Similarly, in situations where there is no conflict between ethics and interest, business ethicists must address what Robbin Derry has termed “the paradox of motivation” in her contribution to Business Ethics . The fact is, most people’s motives are a confusing mix of self-interest, altruism, and other influences. Instead of grappling with this complexity, however, many business ethicists have tied themselves in knots over the notion that a managerial act cannot be ethical unless it in no way serves the manager’s self-interest. This kind of sterile parsing of complex human motivation leads to the untenable position that managers are being genuinely ethical only when it costs them. Put simply, ethics has to hurt.
To grasp how strained such a position can become, consider the following argument made by Norman Bowie, an ethicist at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, in his article “New Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility.” Bowie argues that a company adopting an inner-city elementary school is acting ethically only if other companies don’t do the same thing. Bowi’s curious logic: When only one company pours resources into a school, it’s likely that the company won’t recoup its investment. Indeed, it is other companies that almost certainly will benefit by hiring the school’s better educated graduates. The fact that “some firms will ride free” on the expenditures of the sponsoring company guarantees that those “firms who [do] give money to solve social problems are altruistic.”
If, of course, enough other companies were to start sponsoring schools, it would be possible for them all to recoup their investment by hiring from a much larger pool of better educated students. But then the spectre of self-interest would raise its head, and the purity of the sponsoring companies’ motivation would become muddied. If there were no free riders, there would be no moral companies. An odd argument, to say the least. Some business ethicists used to caution that doing wrong is profitable only when most others are doing right. Now, apparently, they are arguing that doing right is demonstrably moral only when most others are doing wrong.
Can a manager be truly good only in a bad corporation, as some scholars claim? An odd argument, to say the least.
A few business ethicists have used a similar kind of reasoning to criticize companies that try to create incentives to encourage ethical behavior on the part of their employees. If a manager works in a corporate culture that rewards her for doing good, how can her behavior be considered ethical? In his contribution to Business Ethics: The State of the Art, Daniel Gilbert suggests that when ethical behavior is encouraged by “external stimuli,” such as senior executives who “model proper behavior” or “provide others with incentives designed to induce proper behavior,” then the behavior isn’t really ethical. The strong implication is that a manager can be truly good only in a bad corporation.
If a hint of self-interest is present, in other words, then altruism—and hence ethical motivation—can no longer be assumed. Ironically, neoclassical economists, who believe that all human behavior is essentially self-interested, share this view. There is, of course, an essential difference that underlies this similarity: neoclassical economists hold that self-interested motivation is not immoral; but, for many business ethicists, mixed motives deserve and receive no moral credit.
Mistakes and Missed Opportunities
Of course, many business ethicists have tried to go beyond the question “Why be moral?” to shed light on the hard ethical questions managers face. Even when they do so, their work has tended to suffer from one or more of three typical tendencies. First, it is too general—consumed with offering fundamental proposals for overhauling the capitalist system rather than ethics strategies to assist managers who must work within that system. Second, it is too theoretical—preoccupied with philosophical abstractions and anything but “user-friendly.” And third, it is too impractical—concerned with prescriptions that, however morally respectable, run so contrary to existing managerial roles and responsibilities that they become untenable. As a result, such work in business ethics simply hasn’t “taken” in the world of practice, especially when compared with the work of ethicists in other professions such as government, medicine, or law. These professions are, of course, monopolies and hence can more easily impose ethical strictures on their practitioners. But that’s just part of the problem.
Too general.
Business, like government, is not just a profession. It is also a system in which everyone, managers and nonmanagers alike, must live. As a result, the classic moral analysts of business and government have tended to be grand philosophers like Karl Marx or Friedrich von Hayek. Rather than focusing on professional norms and behavioral modes, such thinkers have advanced systemic critiques that often question the very premises of economic and political systems such as capitalism or socialism.
Why do scholars tend toward abstract moral theory? Because business is not just a profession. It is also a system in which everyone must live.
Medicine and law provide an instructive contrast. Because these fields are more traditional professions, their greatest moral analysts have tended to be practitioners like Hippocrates or Oliver Wendell Holmes. Such thinkers accepted and worked within the basic premises and norms of their professions. And that context has allowed them and others to come up with ethical precepts of practical value to actual doctors and lawyers.
Although management increasingly has come to be viewed as a profession in this century, a heritage of systemic moral criticism tempts business ethicists to be grand philosophers. In his contribution to Business Ethics, for example, Richard DeGeorge calls for the field to address questions such as “Is capitalism ethically justifiable? If so, how? If not, why not? Is socialism ethically…preferable?”
These are important questions. But to the considerable extent that business ethicists dwell on them, what they generate is more often high-flown social philosophy than ethics advice useful to professionals. To cite one example, in a recent Business Horizons piece entitled “Corporate Social Responsibility: A Critical Approach,” R. Edward Freeman and Jeanne Liedtka urge managers to “see corporations…as places in which we can be fully unrestrained human beings, places of ‘jouissance’ rather than grey flannel, places of liberation and achievement rather than oppression and denial.”
Too theoretical.
Both medicine and management are referred to as “sciences.” Business ethicists share with medical ethicists the challenge of having to bridge a gulf between their own preoccupations with morals and the harder, more “scientific” nature of the professions they study. In contrast, because government and law address the normative values of a particular political community, they are more receptive to the language of values found in moral philosophy. Medical ethicists have gained credibility within their more scientific field by displaying an understanding of the relevant hard medical-science issues. Business ethicists, by contrast, have attempted to gain credibility within their professional field primarily by girding their work with abstract moral theory.
Norman Bowie’s contribution to Business Ethics addresses this “crisis of legitimacy” that business ethicists face in the “scientific” world of the business school. Many mainstream management scholars, he writes, see ethics as “subjective,” “soft,” and “normative,” while regarding their own fields—finance, say, or marketing or accounting—as “objective,” “hard,” and “scientific.” Bowie defends his field in part by pointing out that business ethics possesses the “complex body of knowledge” that defines a “true discipline.” And by way of offering evidence, he notes that business ethics has “at least two major theories, utilitarianism and deontology” as well as a number of “peer-refereed journals.”
To peruse recent issues of the Journal of Business Ethics is to get a strong sense of the kind of research that has resulted from this need to establish theoretical or scholarly bona fides. The point of one recent article, for example, is to argue that “utilitarian and situation ethics, not deontological or Kantian ethics…should be used in a regional code of conduct for multinational companies operating” in sub-Saharan Africa. The point of another is to “defend the view that from a purely rule-utilitarian perspective there is no sound argument favoring the immorality of hostile liquidating takeovers.”
Ethical theory can help illuminate the moral problems managers face. But no other field of professional ethics has felt the need to couch its analyses so in the language of pure moral philosophy. In his new book Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business, University of Texas philosopher Robert C. Solomon writes that “such theorizing is…utterly inaccessible to the people for whom business ethics is not merely a subject of study but is (or will be) a way of life—students, executives, and corporations.” Unfortunately, academic insecurity is causing business ethicists to direct their work away from addressing the real needs of managers and toward satisfying the perceived rigors of academic science in their field.
Too impractical.
Even when business ethicists try to be practical, however, much of what they recommend is not particularly useful to managers. To understand why, a comparison with law is helpful. In business, as in law, ethicists are increasingly asking individual practitioners to modify their commitments to their traditional principals in order to satisfy the competing interests of nonprincipals. Managers, for example, are urged to weigh the consumer’s interest in healthier products against their obligation to provide shareholders with the healthiest possible dividend. And lawyers are now being encouraged to weigh an opposing party’s right not to be viciously cross-examined against their own client’s right to the most vigorous possible defense.
Such questions are less characteristic of either government or clinical medicine. Rarely do we ask our government officials to put the claims of foreign citizens on a par with our own when they come into fundamental conflict. Nor have we felt comfortable asking a doctor to weigh the claims of another doctor’s patient against his or her own; if helping one patient comes at the cost of helping another, we expect policymakers, not individual doctors, to make the necessary tradeoffs. At present, the most central ethical issues in clinical medicine and government arise when the diverse interests of the same principals come into conflict—for example, when a patient’s interest in being told the truth conflicts with her interest in having peace of mind, or when the interest some citizens have in liberty competes with the interest others have in equality.
In one important respect, then, business ethicists and legal ethicists have an especially difficult row to hoe. Many of their current recommendations simply go against the grain of the traditional professional-principal relationship. This added difficulty doesn’t necessarily mean that business ethicists should abandon their views of right and wrong. If they seek to influence the practice of management, however, they must advance their proposals with a heightened sensitivity to practitioners’ understanding of their professional-principal responsibilities. As Kenneth Goodpaster argues in his thoughtful contribution to the premiere issue of Business Ethics Quarterly, “the challenge…is to develop an account of the moral responsibilities of management” that posits a “moral relationship between management and stakeholders” even as it protects “the uniqueness of the principal-agent relationship between management and stockholder.”
Few business ethicists have risen to this challenge. In the same issue of Business Ethics Quarterly, for example, Norman Bowie uses the uncontroversial proposition that the manager “has obligations to all corporate stakeholders,” as a starting point for a radical redefinition of the managerial mission. His conclusion: the “primary obligation” of the manager is “to provide meaningful work for…employees.” Even if one believes this assertion to be true, such a claim is so alien to the institutional world inhabited by most managers that it becomes impossible for them to act on it.
Towards a New Business Ethics?
There are signs, however, that at least some business ethicists are beginning to grapple with these shortcomings. They are questioning the direction their field has taken and urging their colleagues to move beyond their current preoccupations. Although a number of their ideas have been simmering for years, the critics’ discontent signals the beginning of what might be a more productive direction. Think of it as the new business ethics .
While differing in their specific approaches, advocates of the new business ethics can be identified by their acceptance of two fundamental principles. While they agree with their colleagues that ethics and interests can conflict, they take that observation as the starting point, not the ending point, of an ethicist’s analytical task. In the fittingly final essay of Business Ethics, Joanne B. Ciulla provides a breath of fresh air when she writes, “the really creative part of business ethics is discovering ways to do what is morally right and socially responsible without ruining your career and company.”
Second, the new perspective reflects an awareness and acceptance of the messy world of mixed motives. Accordingly, the key task for business ethicists is not to make abstract distinctions between altruism and self-interest but to participate with managers in designing new corporate structures, incentive systems, and decision-making processes that are more accommodating of the whole employee, recognizing his or her altruistic and self-interested motivations. Such structures, systems, and processes should not “be construed as the personal yielding to the corporate or the corporate giving in to the personal,” suggests Fairfield University business ethicist Lisa Newton in her article “Virtue and Role: Reflections on the Social Nature of Morality.” Instead, they should integrate the two roles. And the “name of that integration,” writes Newton, “is ethics .”
The new business ethics acknowledges and accepts the messy world of mixed motives and moral conflicts.
Within this broad area of agreement, practitioners of the new business ethics pursue a variety of interesting and useful approaches. In Ethics and Excellence, for example, Robert Solomon goes back to Aristotle’s conception of “virtue” to devise an ethics of practical value to managers. For Solomon, being virtuous does not “involve radical demands on our behavior.” Indeed, such demands are “completely foreign to Aristotle’s insistence on ‘moderation.’” According to Solomon, Aristotle used the word “moral” simply to mean “practical.”
In Aristotelian fashion, Solomon proceeds to establish a set of workable virtues for managers: for instance, “toughness.” Neither callously self-interested nor purely altruistic, virtuous toughness involves both a “willingness to do what [is] necessary” and an “insistence on doing it as humanely as possible.” Throughout his book, Solomon discusses toughness (and other morally complex managerial virtues such as courage, fairness, sensitivity, persistence, honesty, and gracefulness) in the context of real-world situations such as plant closings and contract negotiations.
In an article in Business Ethics Quarterly entitled “Shrewd Bargaining on the Moral Frontier: Toward a Theory of Morality in Practice,” J. Gregory Dees and Peter C. Cramton develop another useful approach around the idea of “mutual trust.” Dees and Cramton rightly emphasize that ethical actions don’t take place in splendid isolation; in practice, for example, ethics seems to rest on reciprocity. “It is unfair to require an individual to take a significant risk or incur a significant cost out of respect for the interests or moral rights of others,” they write, “if that individual has no reasonable grounds for trusting that the relevant others will…take the same risk or make the same sacrifice.”
This is an important departure from the absolutist perspective of much contemporary business ethics, particularly from the notion that only when others are not making comparable sacrifices can we gain moral luster from doing so. Their “mutual trust” principle allows the authors to find a moral justification for deception in certain kinds of difficult business situations, even as they urge business ethicists to help managers “find strategies for bringing practice closer to moral ideals.” And in what could well be a manifesto for the new business ethics, Dees and Cramton argue that “the most important work in business ethics” is not “the construction of arguments to appeal to moral idealists, but the creation of actionable strategies for the pragmatists.”
In a similar vein, Thomas Donaldson of Georgetown and Thomas Dunfee of Wharton have emphasized the central role of “social contracts” in devising what Donaldson calls a “minimalist” as opposed to “perfectionist” view of the moral expectations that can be placed legitimately on companies. Social contracts are the implicit moral agreements that, having evolved over time, govern actual business practice. The task of the business ethicist, Dunfee writes in Business Ethics Quarterly, is first to identify and make explicit these diverse ethical norms and then to evaluate them against certain universal, but minimalist, moral principles.
Some existing social contracts would fail such a test: racial discrimination in real-estate sales, say. But many would not. For example, the fact that using insider information is considered more acceptable in real estate than in securities transactions does not necessarily mean that real estate agents somehow don’t have their moral act together. Absent a fundamental moral principle against using nonpublic information, the ethics of doing so in any given case will depend on the “goals, beliefs, and attitudes” of the relevant business community.
This emphasis on social context finds an intriguing echo in Norman Bowie’s work. In “New Directions in Corporate Social Responsibility,” Bowie, in effect, turns around the ethical telescope. “If managers and stockholders have a duty to customers, suppliers, employees, and the local community,” he argues, then it follows that these social actors also have duties to managers and stockholders. For example, environmentalists who want companies to produce more environmentally friendly products also must work to convince consumers to pay the added cost often necessary for manufacturing such products. In other words, business ethics is not a matter of concern for managers alone. It is everyone’s responsibility.
Finally, in Good Intentions Aside: A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Ethical Problems, Boston University School of Management Professor Laura L. Nash attempts to deliver on Joanne Ciulla’s recommendation. Assuming that managers already have good intentions, the task for business ethics is to go beyond “sermonizing” in at least two ways. First, all managers face “hard issues whose solutions are not obvious,” where the “reconciliation of profit motives and ethical imperatives is an uncertain and highly tricky matter.” It is precisely the need to find those solutions and reconciliations that business ethics should address.
Second, Nash contends that business ethics should concern itself with designing and developing organizations for managers who, like all human beings, display the “normal range of ethical instincts [and] have a desire to see that these instincts are not compromised at work.” Good Intentions Aside thus zeros in on what Nash calls “the acute dilemma”—“situations where you do not know what is the right or wrong thing to do”—and the “acute rationalization”—“situations where you know what is right, but fail to do it” because of competitive or organizational pressures.
Nash develops a set of commonsense approaches to help managers deal with these two types of situations. She calls it the “covenantal ethic,” defined as “a manager’s primary obligation…to see that all parties in a commercial endeavor…prosper on the basis of created value.” As an example, Nash cites The Stride Rite Corporation, the $ 500 million manufacturer of children’s shoes. Unlike the products sold by many discount retailers, Stride Rite shoes are designed with a “longstanding, quasi-medical dedication to foot care.” The company is also a shrewd marketer, using appealing shoe designs and aesthetically pleasing boutiques. The result: a socially responsible company that is more profitable than traditional “bottom-line” manufacturers. Nash reports that former Stride Rite Chairman Arnold L. Hiatt “refused to be sucked into the ethics versus bottom line” conundrum. “‘We’re unashamedly out to make a profit,’” she quotes Hiatt, “‘ and we’re very concerned about [children’s] health… We run the business on both concerns.’”
Moderation, pragmatism, minimalism: these are new words for business ethicists.
Moderation, pragmatism, minimalism: these are new words for business ethicists. In each of these new approaches, what is important is not so much the practical analyses offered (as the authors acknowledge, much remains to be worked out) but the commitment to converse with real managers in a language relevant to the world they inhabit and the problems they face. That is an understanding of business ethics worthy of managers’ attention.
- AS Andrew Stark is assistant professor in the Faculty of Management at the University of Toronto and research associate at the university’s Centre for Corporate Social Performance and Ethics.
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relevance of business ethics in today's competitive environment and how business ethics lead to sustain in the market for a long behaving ethically leads to good leadership and good internal control system
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- 1. Relevance of business ethics in today’s competitive business environment (Parminder kaur) 1. Abstract In order to survive and grow in the market, moral values is one thing which must be taken into consideration along with the vision set up by the organization. In today’s era businesses are growing because they are satisfying the needs of consumers in terms of technology, after sales services etc. these happen because the organizations are in search of the first mover advantage and react accordingly. As most are doing now a days every organization is working on the ethics to be complied with by caring for the environment and their customers as well. In this regard, alignment of business ethics and vision of the organization is a major factor which leads to the growth of the organization. Ethics is a significant field that contributes to the increase in profits and goodwill of the organization. The aim of this paper to highlight the importance of ethics in the business environment. The study is exploratory in nature with analyses 2. Introduction – Business Ethics explains the guidelines about how an individual should morally judge a decision about wrong and right. Business which is consumer oriented now a days should give ethics topmost priority. The term ‘Consumer oriented business’ here can be more elaborated as the business which is providing higher satisfaction in both qualitative as quantitative terms. The business which is good in both terms will be able to survive in market. For example- A pharmaceutical company XYZ is producing paracetamol containing norflex in it but has not given disclaimer regarding the same so a person who is allergic to norlfex will not comfortable and it will also increases his discomfort. Moreover in this case it is legalized for pharmaceutical companies to give disclaimer regarding the same and also mention the composition from which it has been made
- 2. Apart from legal aspects, business ethics also includes other responsibilities a business should comply with. It can be in relation to environment or reduction in pollution or anything which gives value to the society. For example – a business taking care that their manufacturing will not increase in pollution and affect the people residing there. And despite all this they ensure that their industrial waste should be recycled if possible and if not it should dumped properly. So here the business is complying with all the ethics which will add value to their business and increase their goodwill Be it legal or moral responsibility, but in 21st century, it is essential to work upon the ethics and it given a high priority. In an organization, usually work is divided and performed by separate departments so the decision will also be taken by different departments for their own. One who is making decision will decide according to the culture of the company In todays competitive business world where there are a many factors to be considered in terms of technology advancements, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, what their competitors are doing etc, it can be quite difficult to keep one more major priority. But giving it a priority will safeguard their reputation among the public and protect them from bad rumors created by media and hence retaining the customers by satisfying their needs It is not only that the customers will stick to our organization it will obviously give benefit to the company. But the organization will also get benefited in terms of employees because the workers will be given enough salary according to the work being done so they will retain in the organization and moreover there will be more potential employees who want to get employed in the organization. So with the efficient employees, goodwill and finally rising in sales will ultimately lead to rise in future economic benefits in the organization and hence it will help in achieving the vision of the organization. As management guides other employees regarding the affairs of the company, so here all comes to the management, when the management (top level) works ethically they can direct their employees to work ethically is such a way that it benefits their personal needs as well as the needs of the company and hence at last attaining the vision of the company. Afterwards the employees will think what is the right path to move . Choosing a right path can lead to more hard work as one might undergo with a bigger path , on the other hand one can go unethically in a shorter path for earning huge short term profits. When the management and employees are
- 3. working ethically it creates good relationship among them which will lead to increase their profitability and also share in the market Along with the fact that how much the ethics are important to a business there is one more factor that needs to be undertaken is corporate culture. In order to minimize the occurrence of any scandal and to prevent unethical behavior in the organization it is necessary to have corporate culture in the organization. When there will be informal session between the employer and the employee their bond will become stronger. Keeping aside the informal meet conducted then it comes to formal part where the vision of the organization is aligned with ethical leadership, good corporate culture and environment responsibilities it will provide an advantage to the company as a whole. This can be done by making promises to employee regarding increment in their salary as and when required and justified, appreciating participation in the formal meets in the organization. This all create a strong ethical culture in the organization Ethical norms are never constant they keeps on changing. An act which is unethical in one country might not be unethical in another country. For example – cow is worshipped as goddess in India however in another countries it flesh is eaten by the people. They use to put that beaf in burgers and buns and then take it. Ethical norms are affected by technology, culture, religion and politics in that country. So these factors make an evaluation of what is ethical and to be done or what is unethical and should not be done. Ethics are not developed by itself. It is done by the interaction between the organization and society because it makes a common understanding between the two and hence stimulates greater harmony in the society. In order to behave everyone ethically one must ensure that all the employees in an organization must know about what the ethics are, how will they give benefit to them as personal, will following ethically path will lead to their achievement of individual visions and so on. This all can be done by conducting various training programs in which the employees are given satisfaction that if they work as stewards for the organization it will give benefits to them on a individual level too. By giving an increment in the salary to deserving employees will prove these type of statements. The organization’s internal system is the only thing that results in the success or failure. Once the workers are assured that with working ethically for the organization will help them too then along with the accomplishment of the vision of the company everyone will be satisfied which will be very advantageous to the organization in the long run.
- 4. After the internal stakeholders the second thing which needs to be studied is protecting the human rights of the people in which the organization is carrying on its production. It is always better to understand the needs and perspectives of the stakeholders of the organization so that the decisions which affect their interest should not be taken. For example- Anglo American is using a SEAT process to get this work done at a local level. This toolbox will guide the managers of the organization to assist that their decisions will not affect the community in which they are and if yes their decision is impacting the community they change their decisions. Their main focus is on stakeholder management. This enables them to better understanding the needs of their stakeholders and work accordingly. It is very true that every organization continues its business for making profit but it should be fixed that it will not be achieved at expense of social, environmental and moral consideration. So protecting human rights, taking care of environment should be first priority in order to make profits and thereafter moving towards the vision to be attained by the organization Erosion of ethics According to Donaldson (1994) ethics can be from two views- relativist and universalist. Being a relativist a person believes that wrong or right is judged on the basis of what is the situation prevailing there and what the culture tells us to do and being a universalist a person believes that wrong and right should be based on some fix standards ignoring the factor what the situation is and whether culture supports it or not. So there is a conflict between the two which also creates confusions in the minds of people who want to survive their business. Ultimately when there will be conflict between the society itself, it will be hard for the organizations to take ethical decisions Globalization in an economy is a factor that leads to erosion of ethics specially in developing countries. It. is nothing but a community that considers geographical boundaries be just a political nuisance. This is done in developing countries because these are the countries which are in need of foreign investments and possess a weak bargaining power among them. And this attracts the unhealthy culture be entered and this all is done by a bidder who are indeed of winning a project by hook or by crook. But this strategy to be given success or not is completely in the hands of investors. If they do not participate in that corruption activity the economies will not be having any element if corruption there and all will work ethically. Once
- 5. that unethical practice has been made it would be repeated again and again affecting the interest of company as well as individuals. 3. Review of literature In existing literature, several studies have been examined the need and relevance of business ethics. The major sections which requires special focus in order to work ethically. How the ethics can be taught and execute in an organization. What are the factors that motivate the employees to work ethically. What is the role of the top management for behaving ethically and what are the factors other than ethics that should be focused for achieving the vision of the organization. What are the challenges faced regarding ethics Kumar Babu G (2015) explains the ethics as a discipline to be maintained in students who are indulged in medical profession either with doctor’s perspective or nursing perspective. In their profession they are given with oaths and declarations in a form specified. The doctors are the persons who are responsible for the lives of the public. Hence according to the author this profession requires a huge level of ethics for saving the lives of people. It is explained that the patient’s family possess a responsibility to the doctor. There are two areas in which a medical student focus which are normative ethics and applied ethics. Moreover there should be morality while taking another person’s sentiments. Hence saying truth and be moral are ethics, what the society acknowledge and give definition is not considered as ethics Shamas-Ur-Rehman-Toor George Ofori (2009) aligns ethical behavior with leadership. Top level of the management and the senior management executives are the leaders of the company who provide guidance to the whole organization must lead effectively and ethically. If they behave unethically then this behave of managers. If managers want their organization to be expanded globally and survive in the market in the long run then leadership is one thing that can help them. When managers behave is rude and they don’t understand the problems of their employees then obviously the employees will not feel free to ask managers everything and when they don’t ask they will not available with how to perform a particular task which may lead to arise in conflicts between the two and at the last level it will affect the company as a whole which will give consequences in attaining the vision of the company.
- 6. Emett Emery (2016) mainly focuses on retail businesses that how unethical behavior affects the small businesses do they need any change in their behavior. The sense of responsibility is here given to the top level managers that behaving ethically should be their priority. When the ethical behavior is aligned with leadership effectiveness and efficiency of the organization increases substantially. When the behave is ethically it will give employees the environment that their personal goals and company’s goals are not different and are aligned with each other this will get the best out of their employees by increasing their productivity and when they give their full level the organization will have better ideas in it and with this the competition can also be faced and all goals will be achieved Mehrdad Salehi (2012) believes that as the business is in need of technology advancements in order to get first mover advantage ethical behavior is the only that can help them. In order to have good internal control system within the organization is must be ensured that conflicts must be less in the organization so that they focus on what they want to achieve and do their work accordingly. It has also been stated that multinational companies which are growing are because of their good corporate governance, corporate culture and corporate social responsibility. However there are certain more challenges to them as compared to Indian companies because of the rules and policies levied on them. But they ensure that there will be ethical behavior in the organization so that employees would feel free to work in their environment Hamid Saremi (2014) believes that there is no fix level of ethical behavior that company should undertake. It depends on the management what level of responsibility they want to take in their organization. Higher the level of ethics they want higher they need to get responsible for the same. In today’s competitive environment the adults are more in deed of their personal motives ignoring the ethics but it has been proved by other companies as well that if you want to survive in the market for a long run then the ethics can’t be ignored. 4. Research objectives i. To recognize the relevance of ethics in an organization ii. To identify the alignment of ethics and leadership in the entity and how it helps in achieving vision of the company iii. To identify whether ethics fosters confidence among the employees or not.
- 7. 5. Need of the study The topic ‘relevance of business ethics in today’s competitive business environment’ has been taken so as to understand the importance of business ethics for continuing business. As the businesses are growing day to day it becomes harder for everyone to survive in the market. If one needs to stay there a strategy must be there which is behaving ethically. Apart from this personal motive of earning profit the society in which the business is carrying on needs to be cared. So what we morally provide to them is also a vast topic to be studied. While generating revenues it should not be there that we are earning it at an expense of the environment. 6. Research methodology This research is exploratory in nature and uses secondary data taken from other various articles. The data has been collected from floridatechonline.com, ukessays.com, Businesscasestudies.co.uk, Researchgate.net, linked in, pressureroom.ups.com, regent.edu, amanet.org and many more 7. Analysis and interpretation This research has been done in order to examine the relevance of ethics in business environment that how ethics is the factor that is responsible for the growth or failure of the organization. Several companies are their which are leader in their markets just because they take care of their environment and behave ethically. Also there are companies which can’t survive in the markets due to lack of ethics in them. Few companies are examined to get results Google- it is considered as one of the good companies in India which are performing ethically. They started a Google green program in which the take care of environment so that it won’t be affected. Under this program they have invested over $1 billion in order to get renewal of the projects which are started with renewable resources. As resources are scarce in nature, it is a very good step taken by the company in terms of ethics as well as fulfillment of corporate social responsibility. Moreover while talking about their
- 8. human resources, they consider their human resources as their first priority and take care of them by providing medical facilities to them and if they want to get consult with any doctor anytime they can do so. They are provided with snack pantry and free legal advice if they want. Above mentioned facilities were very few. There are many other facilities provided to them. This company can be seen as best example for working ethically Microsoft – it is the best company in America that retain their employees as they are real gems for the company. They are given free medical care premiums and other perks which are required. These perks depend upon the needs of the employees. Some might be in need of financial perks like increment in salary and some might be in need of living perks etc. Apart from their human resources they are contributing around $1 billion in a year to non- profit organization and other charitable institutions. As their employees are very crucial to them they keep on motivating other students to enter the industry by organizing various seminars to them. There are certain companies which did not behave ethically and this unethical behavior badly affected their financial position. Enron – Enron was a company established in North America and it was the largest company which was providing natural gas, even they are providing electricity to US as well. The company at that time claimed that their financial position is stable but is actual it was not. The fraud was occurring from the years but since there was lack of ethics so it was not detected. There were many reasons for the scam like lack of truthfulness, conflict of interest. The employees were giving surety that there will be increment their salary but in actual the financial position was so unstable that their share went down and when fraud was detected the company felt a shocked and went bankrupt. This bankruptcy was a shock to the whole country. Due to this scam there was an act called Sarbanes Oxley act was introduced in order to protect the interest of shareholders. Bernard Madoff – Madoff was a well known person in field of finance. The scheme ‘Ponzi scheme’ was started by him claiming that the investors will be earning high profits with low risk. This was quite doubtful to the investors, other competitors and other
- 9. persons who are expertise in finance. But this scheme proved to be very profitable as Madoff was paying to the existing shareholders the amount he demand from various other new investors. But this came to an end where it became hard to find new more investors and the existing shareholders were demanding for their money back along with interest. As these all conflicts occurred the scam was detected madoff was given imprisonment for 150 years. In that case also Madoff was not performing ethically so that company was out of the market. 8. Findings and conclusions The companies who are performing ethically have a secure stay from the perspective of societal respect and they survive in the long run in the market. Their customers are stick to the organization which not only help the organization in their vision but also they can give satisfaction to their employees. Employees are the assets of the organization which help them to survive in market. If they satisfy their employees there will be good internal control in the organization. The more internal stakeholders will be satisfied the more they will work hard. The more they will work hard the more there will be goodwill of the organization. More the goodwill more will be the sales and hence more profitability and vision of the company will be achieved In this world of increasing competition it is very essential for every company to survive in the market in order to increase their profitability. For increasing their profitability it must require the trust of customers. 9. References 1. Stephanie yang (2014) Bernie madoff imprisonment for the fraud he occurred and importance of ethics while continuing business 2. Karan berman and joe knight (2009) too good to be true and relevance of ethics 3. Will Kenton (2018) ethics erosion and relevance of ethics in the business 4. Lauren Jefferson (2017) how ethics impact the financial position of the company. Good ethics return good profits 5. Mintel press team (2015) customers would not stick to the organization if they are performing unethically
- 10. 6. Tim hunt (2018) companies which are doing in terms of ethical behaving and respect for the society 7. Linda K Trevino (2008) ethical and unethical conduct in work organizations 8. Anthony shields (2013) companies with ethical corporate policies and companies which are not indulge in ethical culture 9. Hamid saremi (2014) Islamic azad university quchan branch – role of ethics in management of organization 10. Behrad moien nehzad (2013) Islamic azad university quchan branch- role of human resources in ethics and ethical leadership 11. Brealey, R., Myers, S. and Allen, F (2011) necessity of attention to ethic and its management in organization 12. Emett emery (2016) walden university – ethical behavior, leadership and decision making in an organization 13. David Harrison (2013) university of texas, Austin – the ethical reasoning abilities 14. George ofori (2015) national university of singapore - role of ethical leadership in profession 15. Mehrdad salehi , mojtaba saeidinia, mohammadareza aghaei (2012) management and science university Malaysia – business ethics
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80 Outstanding Business Ethics Research Paper Topics
A business ethics research paper has to be engaging and a solution to a particular economic challenge.
We have a compilation of the best business ethics topics to help you achieve this task. Read on.
Social Media Business Ethics Paper Topics
- Is monitoring employee’s online behavior by companies ethical?
- Should a company fire an employee if they find their information on social media detrimental to its image?
- What is the role of social media in achieving responsible business
- The impact of CSR initiatives on Facebook and Twitter
- How do new product introductions perform on social media?
- How do enterprises manage negative responses on Facebook?
- How to increase positive responses without eroding business ethics
- Is the notion of ‘controversial fit’ on social media ethical?
Business Ethics Research Topics on Privacy
- Installation of surveillance cameras to supervise employees
- To what extent can bosses watch over the actions of their staff?
- Is intercepting and reading E-mail messages in an office ethical?
- What ethical problem does the merging of databases containing personal information pose?
- The emergence of hackers and crackers and the threat to privacy
- Software for decoding digital information
- Who decides the personal or private information to gather?
- Do businesses adhere to the confidentiality of information policy?
Health and Safety Business Ethics Paper Topics
- How does organizational ethical climate affect personal safety ethics?
- The conflict between personal safety ethics and professional safety ethics
- Is the office ergonomics a pressing concern?
- The role of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
- Facility design consistent with health and safety regulations
- Hazard identification and correction by companies
- Who is responsible for shutting down dangerous activities
- Provision of medical surveillance in workplaces
List of Business Ethics Topics on Environmental Damage
- Are businesses using energy-efficient lighting?
- Proper thermostat control of heating and cooling systems
- Do companies have computer equipment operating efficiently?
- Use of wind power and solar panels by industries
- Reducing the business’s environmental impact and carbon footprint.
- Replacing plastic packaging with biodegradable materials
- Examining the effects of the business practices on other species
- Dealing with activities that involve clearing land and destroying animals’ habitats
Ethical Research Paper Topics on Internal Relationships
- Job satisfaction and dedication levels of employees
- Impact of bullying and discrimination on workers
- Productivity levels fall of employees when companies do not care about them
- How to sustain a healthy atmosphere among employees
- Unfair treatment due to race, religion or gender
- How effective is the anti-discrimination law?
- Bias among employees
- Eliminating unethical behaviors within an organization
Ethics Research Paper Topics on Business Leadership
- What is the mark of an ethical leader?
- Objectivity and transparency as leadership traits
- Leaders with strong, virtuous values those with weak values
- Maintaining your temper as a leader
- Dealing with anger in business as a leader
- Can leadership prevail in the use of strength and violence?
- How a leader’s moral stance determines his ethics
- Are women better business leaders than men?
Interesting Business Ethics Topics on Social Responsibility
- Making ethical decision making in big corporations.
- Understanding the concept of corporate responsibility.
- An inspiration for social responsibility in the workplace
- Investing in corporate social responsibility
- How CSR trends are evolving over time
- Striking a balance between profit and social responsibility
- Achieving competitive advantage and CSR
- How learning can contribute to CSR
Business Ethics Paper Topic Idea in Sports
- Encouraging character development through sports
- How unethical behavior affects ones moral and ethical standards outside the pitch
- Are sports competitions alienated from real life?
- How games serve as a primary outlet of our ethics
- Is faking a foul or injury ethical?
- How athletes attempt to get a head start in a race
- Using performance-enhancing drugs
- Intimidating or taunting opponents
Advertising Ethical Issues Topics for Papers
- Should children appear in adverts?
- Is it right for half-naked ladies to appear in adverts?
- Is exaggerating ads ethical?
- Talking about the side effects of products in ads
- Alcohol ads on TV
- Cigarettes and tobacco
- Fooling customers through practical things
- Ethics of advertising a sanitary napkin
Bonus Ethics Paper Topics
- The roots of business ethics in psychology.
- The relationship between business success and personal integrity
- The place of moral leadership in a company
- How to make the right decisions every day at work
- Implications of leadership malfunctions and ethical failures
- How far can an ethical mishap take a company?
- Who should be the moral police in a corporate organization?
- What are the kinds of ethical dilemmas that people face at work every day?
After going through the comprehensive list of topics concerning papers on business ethics, nothing can stop you now. All you need to do is to select one and get going.
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Ethics in the Business Research Research Paper
This paper is bout business research ethics. Generally, when undertaking a business research, the researcher needs to understand that the exercise involves dealing with many other societal issues that can directly affect the final outcome of the research.
We will write a custom Research Paper on Ethics in the Business Research specifically for you for only $11.00 $9.35/page
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This paper explores in detail various aspects of research ethics in business. Even though personal values are an important consideration in ethical decision making, they are regarded by some scholars as just one of the components that guide the decisions, actions, and policies of organizations (Carrigan, 2005).
It has been noted that the burden of ethical behavior relates to an organization’s values and traditions, not just to the individuals who make the decisions and execute them.
Various business research ethical issues and how they affect the world of business research are discussed. In some cases, suggestions are made on how to ensure that researchers emerge victorious despite the challenging social environment that they have to operate in.
Introduction
Ethics, be it in management practice, or in research, requires very strong leadership. To a large degree, ethical behavior within an organization is controlled by existing values and the culture.
However, it is important to note that values and culture in an organization are just some of the components that affect the decision making process. Other components are existing competition and the operating environment, whether political or technological.
As noted by John Maxwell, the level of a person’s effectiveness is, to a large extent, determined by his or her ability to lead others (Maxwell, 2007). This is an important characteristic in research and researchers must work hard to improve their leadership qualities in order to achieve a high level of effectiveness. A researcher with strong leadership skills exhibits a high level of influence and this leads to a greater impact.
The ability to prioritize issues is a critical quality of any leader, manager, or researcher. According to Maxwell’s law of priorities, the fact that a researcher may be busy carrying on with his or her research does not necessarily imply that he or she is realizing the original objectives of the research.
It is, therefore, extremely essential for the researcher to assess the weight of every research issue in order to determine how best to approach the whole research process without causing harm to any one (Maxwell, 2007).
The Nature of Business and Management Research
A misconception within the business world is that research, regardless of what it is about, is simply an academic activity meant to help the research receive his or her academic qualification. This, however, is not true. These circles also believe that researchers are not familiar with the managerial environment and the type of issues faced by managers in the business world (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2009).
This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that most managers do not know how to use research findings and as such, they can not utilize the results and conclusions of research. However, there are similarities that cut across research for academic qualification and that for solving business related problems. The nature of the research is what will guide the planning process.
Typically, business research plays two critical roles for businesses. First, it is part of the business intelligence feedback process. It, therefore, provides decision makers with data on the effectiveness of the current business strategies and provides insights for essential changes.
These may be strategies for marketing, production, quality assurance, and distribution (Carrigan, 2005). Secondly, business research is the principal instrument for exploring and pinpointing new opportunities in the market place such as identifying potential customers, forecasting the number of customers, and learning as much as possible their life styles, ages, genders, incomes, and professions.
Research contributes to management activities through three distinct functional roles. Firstly, research has a descriptive function, which deals with the collection and presentation of data. Secondly, research has a diagnostic function which is about trying to explain the data with a view to finding specific solutions to particular business issues.
For example, determining the impact on sales when the sales strategy changes. Thirdly, research has a predictive function. In a continuously changing global business environment, the concern is how businesses can forecast future developments in order to take advantage of opportunities as they arise (Ferrell et al., 2009).
Among other things, research facilitates effective management. In the business world, undertaking a research is a way clearing any doubts about the business operations. Based on research findings, an organization’s decision making process may be greatly enhanced and any decision arrived at will be backed by existing facts rather than assumptions.
Ethical Issues in Business Research
Generally, ethics is about how people relate with one another based on what is morally acceptable. It is different from law in that while under law, there is always punishment for wrong doing, this is not the case where issues are dealt with ethically. To a large extent, having a code of ethics in place is meant to protect all parties involved in a research project (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004).
Despite the fact that ethical considerations are philosophical in nature, there is no common agreement among philosophers regarding such beliefs.
However, there is a common trend among different societies seeking to determine their own norms in order to control how individuals behave towards one another. Generally, these norms are about suggesting what a member of a group should do under certain conditions (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004).
According to Bryman, Bell and Bryman (2007), the subject of ethics in business research spins around a number of issues that occur quite frequently in the process of carrying out a research project. First, there is need to determine whether any harm was caused to participants.
Secondly, it is important to find out whether participants consented to working closely with the researcher in whichever way. Another critical thing for the researcher to concern himself or herself with is privacy. Intruding a participants’ private space is another thing that is ethically not acceptable by researchers. Finally, it is vital to check if there is any form of deception.
These four principles, nevertheless, overlap somewhat (Ferrell et al., 2009). As an example, one can not easily figure out how the concept of informed consent can be embedded into a research activity where a researcher conceals so much information from the participants in order to fool them into taking part in the research.
Human Rights and Onuses of Parties
There are three groups of people in any research process. These include the researcher, the user of the research results, and the respondent. Ordinarily, a number of ethical issues arise when members of these distinct groups interact with one another.
Rights and Obligations of the Researcher
Ordinarily, any business research should concern itself with providing scientific proof for any business phenomena being examined. The rights and obligations of the researcher include the following:
Harm to Participants
Any research that will eventually harm participants is dangerous and must be rejected by all means. According to Bryman et al. (2007), harm may happen in a number of ways. In some cases, the participants may suffer physical harm while in some the harm caused may ruin a respondent’s reputation or his or her self esteem.
It is also possible that harm may affect one’s career development, ruining his or her opportunities to work in other places. Sadly, this may be accompanied with disgraceful acts. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to identify cases where harm may be caused to participants.
However, a researcher must take all necessary precautions to ensure that the research being undertaken will not cause harm to the participants (Carrigan, 2005).
The aim of the researcher should be to maintain high moral standards by ensuring that research data is objective and factual. Furthermore, it is completely unethical for a researcher to take a stand because of a desire to see the research turn out in a certain way.
Distortion of Research Findings
Ensuring that a research is carried out in an honest manner is the responsibility of all parties involved in the research. Obviously, it is wrong for any one to interfere with the results of a research whether for personal or other reasons. In addition, it is ethically wrong for any researcher to blow up the outcome of a research by altering results.
In other words, it is up to the research professional to ensure that clients as well as participants get results that are genuine and reliable. For example, a researcher must do everything within his or her powers to get questionnaires filled by participants rather than collecting only a few responses and completing the rest.
The researcher should also be willing to explain any unexpected events that may have happened in the process of conducting the research. There is no doubt that the concealment of errors and variations from specific required procedures will lead to a misinterpretation of the results.
Confidentiality
Where it is the wish of participants to remain unidentified, the researcher must do everything within his or her powers to make sure that this agreement is not broken. Vital information such as name and address of the respondent must be kept a secret and should never be made available to any one without the express authority of the respondent.
Any private information gathered from a participant must never be left in the hands of any other person. Researchers must also ensure that the results of the result are true and not compromised to present a falsified outcome.
This is part of what the user of the research results is entitled to and this right must never be interfered with. It is, therefore, in order for users of the research results to find out if issues of confidentiality were fully addressed by the researcher (Ferrell et al., 2009).
Where a researcher fails to carefully address the participants’ concern of confidentiality, participants eventually develop a negative attitude about taking part in any research. Clearly, this will poses a serious problem for any future research to be undertaken. The researcher’s reputation goes down and unfortunately, this behavior ends up affecting other innocent researchers (Bryman et al., 2007).
Disclosure of Defective Information and/or Erroneous Conclusions
Despite the fact that this does not amount to ethical dilemma, it is, nevertheless, a requirement that the researcher undertakes the research based on acceptable scientific standards. The problem arises when the final outcome of the research is not well aligned with the research data collected.
The researcher must also not use his or her understanding of research methods and techniques to manipulate the results of the research or, to deliberately blind his or her audience (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004).
Stealing Ideas from other Research Proposals
This may happen where a researcher submits his or her research proposal but this is later maliciously used by a client for other reasons and without the knowledge of the research professional. The end result of this is that someone else becomes the beneficiary and illegally uses the proposal to accomplish his or her agenda.
Lack of Informed Consent
Before a research can proceed, it is vital for the researcher to fully address the concern resulting from lack of informed consent. The bulk of the discussion tends to focus on what is commonly called disguised or covert observation. Under covert observation, a researcher secretly observes participants secretly (Bryman et al., 2007).
In spite of the fact that covert research is unethical, it is also advantageous and may be used in some cases to evade serious problems. It is highly likely that participants in a research may fake their actions when being observed.
Fear among respondents may also cause them to avoid researchers. Clearly, covert methods are not acceptable given that they violate the confidentiality of participants. This certainly goes against the desire to protect the privacy of research participants (Bryman et al., 2007).
Rights and Obligations of the User
Similar to the researcher, the user of the research results takes responsibility for certain aspects of the research. Among the rights and obligations of the user are the following:
Ethics between Buyer and Seller
In some cases, a firm may act unfairly by buying a business research proposal and then proceeding to ask for competitive bidding from eligible firms in order to make the public believe that the selection process was duly followed. Unsuspecting bidders fall into this trap and innocently submit their bids.
Asking for research proposals that will not be used like in this situation is totally against research ethics and must be condemned with the strongest terms possible.
Relationship with Research Companies
Considering that each research is a completely different task, research companies must take time to understand the requirements of the research at hand. Among other things, this is meant to ensure that proper results are realized from every single research project. Certainly, each research will have its own unique problem statement, objectives, and research questions among others.
An Open Relationship with Interested Parties
All interested parties are expected to make use of the research outcomes in the correct way. It is wrong for any user to interpret the results in a manner that presents falsified results. Drawing conclusions that are not in line with what the research is expected to achieve is unethical and must not be encourage. Usually, this is done for selfish interests or for political reasons.
Rights and Obligations of the Respondents
Much like the other parties, respondents in a research also have a right to know what the research is all about. Reasons for carrying out the research must be made very clear to the respondents and nothing should be concealed. In addition, participants have a right to know how the issue of confidentiality and privacy will be handled during the research.
The Obligation to be Honest
Given that respondents play a big role in any research, it is essential for the researcher to encourage honesty. Both the researcher and the respondents must be honest with each other. While the researcher must ensure that nothing but the truth is exposed to the respondents, the respondents equally have a responsibility to remain honest and respond truthfully.
Privacy is a major concern especially for respondents. While some respondents decide on remaining anonymous, others will choose to disclose personal details such as names and addresses among others.
Very important is the fact that the researcher must make a covenant with the respondents not to disclose any confidential details to third parties. Any confidential information must be stored securely and only accessed by authorized personnel.
Among other things, this principle is meant to encourage participants to freely participate in the research and cooperate fully. Where respondents feel cheated and disrespected their level of participation will definitely be affected and the researcher may end up on the losing end.
Concealment
Researchers must be aware of the fact that hiding the truth from respondents in quite unethical. Concealing the truth is a clear indicator of the fact that the researcher is not being honest. It is common for researchers to hide the truth when the type of research being done is a sensitive one that could be scary for the respondent.
Some people have, however, defended this behavior claiming that no harm is caused by concealing information from the participants. Regardless of the reason for the concealment, the practice is unethical and must not be encouraged for whatever reason. Closely related to this is the respondent’s right to be informed of everything about the research.
Opponents of this notion always wonder whether a small deception leads to any substantial increment to the value of the research. According to (Herbst & Coldwell, 2004), however, some degree of concealment is necessary in some research. An example is where undertaking a research carries some risk and the researcher has no option but to conduct the research covertly.
According to Bryman et al. (2007), deception is used by some researchers to try and model the desired results. Apparently, deception may be allowed in some cases so as to ensure that the originality of the data is not lost. For those opposed to the idea of deception in research, there are two things to bear in mind. First and foremost, it is completely wrong to encourage deception in research.
Despite the fact that scholars are fully aware of the existence of deception in research, the practice is totally unethical and the problem must be seriously dealt with in order to guarantee the usefulness of a research. Secondly, vested interest in research by professional researchers is also a major concern.
The idea of researchers behaving like spies can really work against them and make participants treat them with so much suspicion. Obviously, this will work against future research undertakings (Bryman et al., 2007). It is, however, important to note that when discussion this aspect of ethics, the biggest challenge has to do with the fact that deception is so rampant in business related research.
In most instances, researchers will rarely provide research participants with the complete details about a research. To some scholars, researchers have to condone with this practice and seemingly, there is no way they can avoid it. To such researchers, therefore, the practice of deception is justifiable. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to know when to act covertly and when not to.
Considering the negative impact of deception on research, it is critical for researchers to do every thing possible to minimize or even get rid of deception in research. No researcher should seek to glorify himself at the expense of fellow human beings. However, where a research may not succeed without deception, the onus is on the researcher to explain everything clearly to the respondents.
Researchers and their assistants must understand that it all depends on them to use inquiry methods that appreciate and respect the social side of business research. Anything else done contrary to this is in bad light and must not be encouraged.
Other Ethical Considerations
Besides the ethical principles that have been discussed above, there are other vital ethical considerations that must be carefully examined when planning to carry out a business research (Dunfee & Nagayasu, 1993). One of these concerns relates to the gathering, storing, and using electronic data.
Questions often arise regarding the extent to which data previously collected for a research may be used in a current research with similar characteristics.
However, considering that data privacy is well guarded by law, research professional have no choice but to comply with the requirements of the law. Legal advice may, therefore, be sought in order to determine how confidential data previously gathered from research participants may be used and to what degree.
Another area of concern touches on being open and honest when presenting research outcomes to interested individuals or even organizations. To some extent, this is also closely linked to the ethical issues of informed consent as well as deception discussed earlier. It is important for the researchers to ensure that there is mutual benefit from research for the researcher and the participants (Dunfee & Nagayasu, 1993).
In a way this leads to reciprocity where the research ends up benefiting the researcher as well as his or her participants. Clearly, this is in line with the principle of giving back to the society which is a very important consideration especially because research work is here to stay if participants are not well taken care of, involving them in future research projects may prove to be very challenging (Bryman et al., 2007).
Others issues are related to affiliation and conflict of interest. Obviously, where a research has been sponsored by a funding organization, it is highly likely that the organization will influence the research results given that it has a vested interest in the research outcome. Clearly, the integrity of such a research is highly questionable and doubts associated with it may render the research outcomes unreliable.
However, this problem may be lessened or fully addressed by involving an independent party in the verification of the research findings. The independent verifier may even be involved right from the planning stage of the research.
As discussed in this paper, there is so much that goes into planning for a business research activity. Clearly, a good understanding of ethical principles is necessary to ensure that research is done in a way that does not disrespect the wishes of all parties involved.
It is, however, quite difficulty to distinguish between ethical and unethical research practices. Despite this difficulty, an honest research professional and one who is determined to do what is right can easily tell the difference between these two.
Where rules have to be bent slightly, it is imperative to do so with so much caution so as not to harm anyone involved in the research. As explained earlier, there are instances this may apply such when a researcher has to carry out his or her research covertly.
Although it may be challenging to guarantee honesty on the part of the respondents, researchers must everything possible to make sure that this happens. Apparently, enough literature exists to offer guidance to the researcher in this regard.
With the advancement in technology and the increased use of the increased use of the Internet, numerous approaches may be used to gather data for research purposes. Unfortunately this presents a serious ethical concern.
Most data is available through online databases and can be accessed by any one with or without permission. Luckily, such challenges resulting from the increased use of technology are negligible considering that computer experts who can effectively deal with issues of security and data privacy are today available almost everywhere.
Bryman, A., Bell, E., & Bryman, A. (2007). Business Research Methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Carrigan, M. (2005). Ethics and International Marketing: Research Background and Challenges . Bingley, BD: Emerald Group Publishing.
Dunfee, T.W., & Nagayasu, Y. (1993). Business Ethics: Japan and the Global Economy. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2009). Business Ethics 2009: Ethical Decision Making and Cases . Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Herbst, F., & Coldwell, D. (2004). Business Research. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta and Company Ltd.
Maxwell, J.C. (2007). The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership; Follow them and People will Follow You. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
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178 Best Business Ethics Research Paper Topics You Will Love
Are you looking for some of the most interesting business ethics topics? We know you are, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article. The good news is that you have arrived at just the right place at just the right time. Our expert writers have just finished updating our list of business ethics research paper topics. You will find the best business ethics essay topics right here and it only takes a minute or two of your time to find the perfect idea.
Table of Contents
Use our business ethics research paper topics, a list of the most interesting ethics topics in business, easy business ethics topics, business ethics paper topic ideas for high school, business ethics during the pandemic, ethics research paper topics for college, interesting business ethics topics, social responsibility ideas, technology business ethics ideas, managers and ethics ideas, social media business ethics ideas, health and safety, controversial business ethics topics, business ethics debate topics, dissertation topics in business ethics, legal business ethics ideas, hot topics in business ethics, business ethics and environmental protection, business ethics topics for presentation, advertising business ethics ideas.
But why use any of our business ethics paper topics? Well, the simple answer is because they are not only 100% original and very interesting, but also completely free. Yes, you can pick any of our topics and write a great research paper about it without having to pay anything.
Another reason is the fact that we are constantly updating the list of topics. You can always find interesting or controversial topics that nobody else has thought about right here. As you probably know, this usually means you will get bonus points from your professor. Everyone appreciates an original idea, you can be sure of that.
If you are looking for top-notch ethics topics in business, you are in luck. We have a long list of 178 ideas that you can choose from. Our list of business ethics topics is split into 18 sections, so every student should be able to find the right topic quickly. Without further ado, here are the topics you can choose from completely free of charge:
We’ll start our list with the easy business ethics topics. If you don’t want to spend days working on your research paper, just pick one of these ideas and get started right away:
- Discuss the concept of Corporate Conscience
- Business ethics in accounting
- Selling a product that does not work
- The food supplements market in the UK
- Can companies be blamed if people misuse their products?
- The concept of honesty in business
- Child labor in Indonesia
- Uber drivers: employees or contractors?
- Discuss bribery
- Analyze the concept of “Respect of Others”
- Promise-keeping in US companies
If you are a high school student who is interested in writing about business ethics, we have a very nice selection of business ethics paper topic ideas for high school students right here:
- Business ethics in the finance sector
- Promoting products are not tested
- Discuss the concept of fairness
- Regulating medical advertisements
- Discuss discrimination at the workplace
- Analyze the corporate governance concept
- Insider trading: ethical or not?
- Discuss fiduciary responsibilities
- The concept of loyalty in business
- The concept of Concern for Others
It would definitely be interesting to discuss business ethics during the Pandemic. Your professor will surely award you some bonus points if you choose any of these topics:
- Companies hiding commodities at the start of the pandemic
- Should SMBs pay tax during a pandemic?
- The toilet paper shortage
- Should companies make profits by selling face masks at inflated prices?
- Ethical concerns during the Covid-19 pandemic
- The huge profit made by medical companies
- Providing healthcare service to everyone
- US companies and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Mandatory unpaid leave in the United Kingdom
- Laying off staff to protect the business from Covid19.
College students should pick some more difficult topics to write about. Here are some excellent ethics research paper topics for college students:
- Analyze the autonomy principle of ethics
- Business ethics in the trade sector
- Analyze personal business ethics
- Discuss professional business ethics
- Discuss the fidelity principle of ethics
- Corporate business ethics: and in-depth analysis
- Competitive advantages provided by business ethics
- Employee happiness and business ethics
- Advantages of business ethics
- Discuss the nonmalefience principle
We have a list of the most interesting business ethics topics right here. Pick any of them and start working on your essay right now:
- Business ethics in corporate law
- The beneficience principle
- The justice principle of ethics
- The veracity principle of ethics
- The right and wrong concepts in business ethics
- Discuss descriptive ethics
- Analyze the value theory
- The Privacy core behavioral norm
- Corporate policies in the UK
- Regulated vs. unregulated firms in the US
Social responsibility business ethics topics are relatively difficult to find these days. To make sure you get a top grade on your paper, use one of these ideas:
- Discuss the concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility)
- Poor working conditions in Chinese factories
- Corporate social responsibility in the United States
- Best practices for CSR
- Notable corporate social responsibility trends
- Ethical decisions in CSR
- Corporate social responsibility in the United Kingdom
- CSR in Europe vs. CSR in Africa
- Asian corporations and their corporate social responsibility track records
- Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage
The boom in technology businesses has also led to some new ethical issues. Check out the following technology business ethics ideas and pick the one you like:
- Is employee surveillance ethical?
- Technology that ensures transparency in a company
- Discuss the concept of destructive technology
- Discuss stakeholder privacy
- Social media use at the workplace
- Should companies be watching their employees all the time?
- Social media and its role during a job interview
- Product bias in UK companies
- Marketing tools: the negative effects no one is talking about
- Expensive software or better salaries?
Discussing ethics from the perspective of a manager is a sure way to get some bonus points. This is not an easy research paper, so make sure you know how to write one. Examples include:
- Managers that excel at enforcing business ethics
- Discuss bargaining from an ethics point of view
- Moral management at the workplace
- Morality and ethics required of a good manager
- Discuss the integrity of Apple managers
- Discuss the integrity of Amazon fulfillment center managers
- Slashing the salaries of your employees: is it ethical?
- Unethical management and its effects on the image of the company
- Proper ethics standards and their effects on company profits
Our ENL writers have put together a list of the best social media business ethics ideas. Here are some of our most interesting ideas:
- Answering questions on social media ethically
- Posting on social media ethically
- Ethical concerns of ad targeting on social media
- Using social media in an ethical way in the US
- Discuss corporate social media policies in the UK
- Discuss Kantian Ethics as it applies to the use of social media
- Social media and its inherent dangers at the workplace
- Social media comments: On or Off?
- Improving ethics regarding social media use
- Personal social media accounts used for company ads
Of course, you can talk about health and safety business ethics, especially considering the COVID-19 pandemic. Pick one of these ideas and write your essay in no time:
- Correcting safety hazards in corporations
- Discuss the importance of office ergonomics
- Who is responsible for an employee’s health?
- Preventing dangerous activities at the workplace.
- Should all companies have their own medics?
- Discuss personal safety ethics in the US
- Professional versus personal ethics in the UK
- Health and safety regulations at the workplace
- The profit or the safety of the employee?
- Health and safety hazards during the Covid-19 pandemic
You should not be afraid to write your papers on controversial business ethics topics. Most professors actually encourage this kind of approach. Here are some great ideas that you can use right now:
- The religious origins of business ethics
- The philosophical origins of business ethics
- Discuss the business ethics regarding intellectual property
- International issues affecting business ethics in the US
- Executive compensation in the UK
- Discuss transparency from an ethical POV
- Business ethics as an academic discipline
- Abusive behavior at the workplace
- Insider trading from an ethics point of view
- Discuss a major accounting scandal in the United States
Do you need to write a debate about business ethics? No problem. Check out the following list of business ethics debate topics and choose the one you like the most:
- Employee commitment
- Business ethics equal higher profits?
- Shareholder’s opinions on ethics
- Ethics at a financial firm
- Business ethics at a marijuana company
- Business ethics and customer satisfaction
- Whistleblowing: ethical concerns
- Corporate espionage
- Non-disclosure agreements
Dissertation topics in business ethics are meant for university students or postgrads who want to start working on their dissertation. These topics are quite complex and require a lot of work to write a paper about them:
- Privacy at the workplace
- Racial discrimination in US companies
- Time-consuming business ethics
- Adobe: a case study of business ethics
- Microsoft’s business ethics code
- Business ethics in Amazon’s fulfillment centers
- Mandatory unpaid leaves in the United Kingdom
- Solving ethical problems effectively
- Accounting ethics and their use in the US
Our team of experienced writers has compiled a list of the best legal business ethics ideas for you. Take a look at the following ideas and pick one today:
- The moral police of a corporation
- Legal implications of misleading headlines
- Legal implications of scam adverts
- Should companies stand behind their services?
- Comparing your product with others: a legal view
- Morality versus law in the corporate environment
- The concept of legal ethics
- Discuss business ethics at a law firm
- Can promises be viewed as binding contracts?
- Using mentally-impaired people in ads
Are you looking for the most interesting ideas for your next essay about business ethics? No problem, we have a list of hot topics in business ethics right here for you to choose from:
- Discuss corporate social responsibility
- Analyze the ethics in a company’s sales department
- Sexual harassment at the workplace in the US
- Ethical problems when running a used car dealership
- The manufacturing sector and environmental damage
- Selling products that have not been tested
- The food supplement business
- The sale of anti-Covid medication in 2022
- Subway’s business model from an ethical POV
- Business ethics on Facebook
As you’ve probably guessed, business ethics are very important when it comes to the environment (and protecting it). Take a look at these wonderful business ethics and environmental protection ideas:
- Energy-efficient lighting in companies around the UK
- Proper heating and cooling systems
- How to reduce the carbon footprint of your business?
- Business activities that are destroying the land.
- Avoiding the destruction of animal species
- Wind power in the manufacturing sector.
- Solar panels on every office
- Biodegradable materials or plastic bags?
- Saving money or protecting the environment?
- Optimizing the consumption of resources
Do you need to write a presentation about business ethics? Perhaps you don’t have much time at your disposal. Pick one of our awesome business ethics topics for presentation and start writing your paper in minutes:
- Analyze the ethics in a company’s marketing department
- Examples of unethical conduct
- Should companies be 100% honest?
- Higher taxes for the fast food industry
- Production industry to pay higher taxes for pollution
- Religious views on business ethics
- Psychological implications of ethics
- International problems with business ethics
- Management accountability in the US
- Improving operations through business ethics
When it comes to advertising, business ethics is a very interesting thing to talk about. In fact, we have some exceptional advertising business ethics ideas for you right here:
- Discuss the concept of misleading advertising
- Should we advertise guns on TV in the United States?
- E-cigarettes and the business ethics concerns of advertising them.
- Discuss misleading headlines and their uses.
- Scam advertisements in the United Kingdom
- Using minors to advertise products: good or bad?
- Alcohol adverts and their negative impact.
- Women and their role in advertising
- Obscene language in advertisements in the US
- Advertisements that promote smoking
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Journal of Business Ethics
The Journal of Business Ethics publishes only original articles from a wide variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives concerning ethical issues related to business that bring something new or unique to the discourse in their field. From its inception the Journal has aimed to improve the human condition by providing a public forum for discussion and debate about ethical issues related to business. In order to promote a dialogue between the various interested groups as much as possible, papers are presented in a style relatively free of specialist jargon. FT 50 - This journal is one of the 50 journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the prestigious Business School research rank Clarivates Journal Citation Reports® Ranking by Category - Ethics 2/56 - Business 54/154 Section Descriptions https://www.springer.com/journal/10551/updates/17211284
Journal information
- Michelle Greenwood,
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Latest issue.
Issue 2, March 2023
Latest articles
The emergence of concerned partnerships in the ethical marketization of place: a narrative lens.
- Content type: Original Paper
- Open Access
- Published: 06 March 2023
Collaborating for Community Regeneration: Facilitating Partnerships in, Through, and for Place
- Jennifer Brenton
- Natalie Slawinski
Would You Walk 500 Miles? Place Stewardship in the Collaborative Governance of Social-Ecological Systems
Authors (first, second and last of 4).
- Lucie Baudoin
- Mohammed Zakriya
- Published: 05 March 2023
Don’t Shoot the Messenger? A Morality- and Gender-Based Model of Reactions to Negative Workplace Gossip
- Maria Kakarika
- Shiva Taghavi
- Helena V. González-Gómez
- Published: 04 March 2023
The Ethics of Freedom in Consumption: An Ethnographic Account of the Social Dimensions of Supermarket Shopping for Moroccan Women
- Delphine Godefroit-Winkel
- Lisa Peñaloza
- Published: 02 March 2023
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