Individual and Corporate Ethics
Governments use laws to regulate businesses and to shape business behavior in ways that are supposed to be beneficial for individuals and society.
business ethics
Business ethics refers to standards or sets of values that govern the actions and behavior of individuals within a business organization and of the business itself in areas that are not directly regulated by laws.
As the definition of business ethics above suggests, business ethics is a broad term that applies to the behavior of the individuals who work at a business as well as the actions of the business itself. There is a narrower term, “corporate ethics,” that is used for this second area of the actions of a business. Corporate ethics express the values of an organization to its internal and external stakeholders. Websites such as EthicalConsumer.org promote “ethical consumerism” to help consumers act in the marketplace in ways that are consistent with their ethics and highlight the poor corporate ethics of companies such as Nestle and Amazon as target of consumer boycotts.
But it’s not all grim news when it comes to business ethics. For example, the Ethisphere Institute—an organization focused on gauging ethical business practices—publishes a list of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” on an annual basis. The overall goal of Ethisphere’s rankings is to “to measure and showcase the superior achievements of organizations that are committed to doing business with ethics and integrity.”[1] But just because a business is on this list doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. For example, Starbucks has been on the list 14 times[2] yet many workers accuse the company of not paying fair wages.