Ethical_and_Moral_Issues

Ethical and Moral Issues in Business Trever Canham MGMT 216 March 14, 2011 Prof. Lewkut Ethical and Moral Issues in Business Ethics are the back bone of every industry looking to survive in the business world. A customer would eventually lose interest in a company if they decided to promote bad customer service or poor quality products. Often times a company will have a mission statement that defines their purpose and their methods of achieving that purpose. For example, FedEx says “Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards,” (FedEx, 2011). It is evident they are covering their bases in saying the customer needs come first and when doing this, the highest standards will be up held. Ethical issues based on a group effort and consideration. These can stem from any number of sources including church, school, clubs, and work, so basically group type activities. The moral issues are things people feel personally that can still come from the same type of groups. Morals, “may require a notion of a natural order (possibly of a religious character) that certain actions violate, even if they do not cause harm in some other way,” (Blum, 2006). This applies more to the code a person lives by and judges themselves on. Personal ethics relate to the person dictating them. This is not limited to just the business needs and its partners; this has to do with a person’s life as a spectrum. A person’s choice of religion, sexuality, health needs, etc, may make them a vegetarian and active sports enthusiast. Their job can still be a meat packing plant manager; they just have to apply different ethics at that point so their goals as a business leader still help the company. They do not have to directly conflict with personal ethics. With the information given above, the common debate of abortion comes up and each side claims morality in their views. Essentially, the Pro Choice side says it is immoral and unethical to “murder” an unborn baby, while the Pro Life side says to seize control over one’s body is also unethical. This issue creates controversy because while many consider the act immoral, it is based on their religious views and pushing those views on other people is in fact the immoral action. In the business setting, the customer comes first and their needs can often get put above the needs of the company polices. For instance, when a restaurant has a complaint about food, they usually comp the food to keep good faith with the customer so they come back. The personal side of things can be the chef or the waitress who assisted in preparing the food and made sure it was up to the company standards. If they feel the customer just ended up not liking something new, they may have denied giving the food away for free because their services were performed and well earned. References  FedEx. (2011). Mission, Strategy, Values. Retrieved from http://about.fedex.designcdt.com/our_company/company_information/mission_statement DeGeorge, R. (2010). Business Ethics (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Blum, Lawrence. "Ethics and Morality." Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Donald M. Borchert. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. 450-451. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 14 Mar. 2011. E