Abstract
This paper will examine the business ethics in the corporate world. This will be achieved through the comparison of two articles in business ethics. The first article is Principles and Practices for Corporate Responsibility that was the first issue of the Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ). It analyzes how to operate these business ethics principles in diverse cultural settings and under various conditions. The second article is Business and Marketing Ethics: Good News and Bad News analyzes the development of journal articles related to business ethics and marketing ethics. Specifically, it focuses on articles from the Business Ethics Quarterly.
<h2>Keywords: Business Ethics, Multinational Enterprises, Marketing Ethics, and Moral Risks
The first article is based on implementation of the principles of business ethics. The author scrutinizes the challenges posed to companies, especially Multinational Enterprises, due to the ambiguity in the implementation of these principles. An analysis of the Global Economic Ethic (GEE) and UNGC guidelines indicate that it is almost impractical to fully abide to them. This is because the corporate world is diversified and the guidelines do not entirely meet requirements of each condition. Therefore, this leads to compromise. Companies and individuals have had to take risks in a bid to abide with these corporate, business ethics (Werhane, 2010).
A good example of the ambiguity in abiding with business ethics is the ship breaking case. Once the ships have become obsolete, they are sent to India for the ship breaking process. This causes pollution and toxic substances produced provide poor working conditions to the workers. Alternatively, the ship would have been left to rot away in some harbor. Either way, there is pollution. Thus, ambiguity arises and abiding to business ethics becomes impractical. The same case applies to MNEs operating in countries that are widely traditional. Such companies have to take moral risks. Therefore, these dilemmas are in the way of companies adhering to corporate responsibilities.
The second article examines how information on business and marketing ethics literature has evolved over the years. It analyzes the trends that have been adapted so as to ensure that individuals have access to corporate social responsibilities. This is a positive development in ensuring that enterprises worldwide abide to business and marketing ethics. However, some information on marketing ethics seems to have been ignored. This in itself is unethical (Murphy, 2010).
The author notes that there has been the publication of half-baked researches to test theories in CSR. This has resulted in dominance in marketing ethics literature. The author hopes that scholars in the marketing ethics field will gain momentum to be involved in research, in the same, as they did before.
The two articles both examine the irony of created by business ethics. For instance, the golden rule is that companies should abide fully to business ethics. However, the corporate world is imperfect. This implies that abiding to ethics cannot be absolute but only satisfying. This is because of diversity of the corporate world. The same is depicted in the second article. Journal articles are being published based on half-baked information to talk about ethics. This is done irrespective of the fact that they are being unethical by not providing well-researched information. In order to enact changes in the corporate world, scholars need to be at the forefront as outstanding examples of how to be ethical.
The first article seeks to explain that companies are not to blame for not fully upholding ethics. This is because it has been proven impossible to operate the same. The second article differs on that opinion. The author is of the opinion that ethics would be upheld if scholars take time to provide the necessary information on CSR. After all, business ethics are standards that must be upheld by all players.
References
Murphy, P. (2010). Business and Marketing Ethics: Good News and Bad News. Business Ethics
Quarterly, 20(4), 751-753.
Werhane, P. (2010). Principles and Practices for Corporate Responsibility. Business Ethics
Quarterly, 20(4), 695-701.
