Business Ethics and Ethical Business Mount Saint Vincent MBA 701 Presentation By: Robin Ferrer

Chapter 9 Conditions of Employment And Codes of Ethics  Safety, Risk, and Informed Consent  Whistle blowing  Healthcare Obligations and Responsibilities  Privacy in Employment  Private Lives and the Movable Workplace  Company Codes and Mission Statements

Safety, Risk, and Informed Consent  Strongest Obligation- Non-Injury  Moral Responsibilities are inalienable  Kantian Ethics-prohibits treating people “merely as means”  Laws do not support ethical standards  How do we know if we are safe enough???  What we consider acceptable for ourselves often indicates what principles we can rationally universalize

Safety, Risk, and Informed Consent  There must be free, informed and adequately reflective consent to work under specified conditions  Consent needs to specify risk  Must have time to adequately reflect on the risk  Consent forms that do not provide clarity or are written in fine print (not informing)  Risk is a two dimensional concept 1. Magnitude of Harm that may occur 2. Probability of it’s occurrence  Risk becomes greater with an increase in either factor

Whistle blowing  Blow the whistle-going to authorities outside, or the press or some other person (s) to rectify the problem  Employees who discover serious wrongs face conflict of obligations  Ethical Standard- priority of internal resolution principle  Following the chain of command  Risky cost cutting  Do not wait until disaster strikes to take an ethical stand

Healthcare Obligations and Responsibilities  Healthcare cost are rising  Universal Healthcare Coverage  Preventive measures should be part of every business’s healthcare program  Prevention more economical than a cure  The future of healthcare is prevention!  Pay for Performance coming to all Hospitals

Privacy In Employment  Drug test/Medical test  Psychological examination  Private information to not be sought except where appropriate  “proprietary information”-possibility of monitoring employee’s communication  It is not ethical for an employer to access employee’s information without first informing them

Private Lives and the Movable Workplace  Many Employees do work from home or “on the road”  Computers, Cell phones, and travel everywhere  “Private Life”  Moral virtue makes a difference  People of high ethical standards consider their conduct in public and private  Behavior in uniform

Company Codes and Mission Statements  Specific rules of conduct  Justice, non-injury, and beneficence join in supporting restraints on romantic relationships among employees who work closely in business  Prohibiting romantic relationships between people of substantially different power in a company  Company’s ethics code should be an application of ethical principles to the environment, culture, and purpose of the company  Ten ethical principles of chapter 4 are a good basis to guide composition of codes and mission statements

W.D. Ross’s famous list of “prima facie” obligations  Justice: the double barreled obligation (a) negatively, not to commit injustice and (b) positively, to prevent future injustices and rectify existing ones;  Non-injury: the obligation to avoid harming others;  Fidelity: the obligation to keep promises;  Veracity: the obligation to avoid lying  Reparation: the obligation to make amends for wrong-doing  Beneficence: the obligation to do good deeds for others, especially to contribute to their virtue (goodness of character), knowledge, or pleasure;  Self-improvement: the obligation to better oneself  Gratitude: the obligation to express appreciation for good deeds toward us  Liberty: the obligation to preserve and enhance human freedom;  Respectfulness: the category of obligations of manner (roughly, of respectfulness)

Company Codes and Mission Statements  The ten ethical principles are compass towards a company’s ethical conduct  Integrity in business and, more generally, ethics in conduct, cannot be dictated by a code  A code that stresses the ten principles in chapter 4, integrated with a good mission statement can do much to reinforce ethics in the conduct of business