Managers of corporations in the modern business world have a continuous task of making important decisions that will seriously affect the long-term success of the company. When dealing with the constantly evolving legal and business issues of today, managers often discover that many gray areas of uncertainty exist. Sometimes there is no definite right or wrong answer to a given situation. It is during these times of uncertainty that many managers heavily rely on ethical standards and practices that are enforced by the corporation in its code of ethics (Miller and Gaylord 68). A manager can also follow a set of ethical guidelines that he or she has developed throughout numerous business and personal experiences. Business ethics can be defined as the focus on what constitutes right or wrong behavior in the business world and how moral and ethical principles are applied by businesspersons to situations that arise in their daily activities in the workplace (Miller and Gaylord 61). Business ethics is extremely important to a company in the long run because most of the corporations that withstand the test of time have done so by following a set of strict ethical practices and moral methods of decision making.
In order for a company to function in an ethical manner, it must first understand exactly what constitutes ethical behavior and practices. The process of determining whether an act is ethical or not greatly depends on the morality of the person who is considering the given situation and the norms and culture of the society in which the corporation functions (Miller and Gaylord 60). Although some questions of ethics are uncertain as to having a right or wrong answer, many decisions are clearly right or ...