MGT 735 Contemporary Business Ethics
This course discusses the nature and significanceof ethical standards and identifies four kinds ofmoral principles for resolving ethical dilemmasin business. It then encourages candidates toapply the resulting theory to specific issuessuch as the ethics of markets and prices (freemarkets, Marxist criticisms, the mixed economy,various forms of competition); environmental andconsumer issues (pollution, depletable resources,conservation, consumer protection, advertisingethics); and employee issues (job discrimination,employee rights and obligations, affirmativeaction, a firm's duties to its employees). Thecourse aims to 1) introduce ethical concepts thatare relevant to resolving moral issues inbusiness, 2) develop the reasoning and analyticalskills needed to apply ethical concepts tobusiness decisions, 3) identify the moral issuesinvolved in the management of specific problemareas in business, and 4) examine the social andnatural environments within which moral issues inbusiness arise. The fundamentals of ethicalreasoning and influence of culture (national andorganizational) on ethical frameworks will beemphasized, in order to enhance candidatesunderstanding and ability to manage the ethicalclimate in organizations. Topics covered includeethics and business, ethical principles inbusiness, the business system, ethics in themarketplace, ethics and the environment, theethics of consumer production and marketing, theethics of job discrimination, and the individualin the organization. This course should be ofbenefit to anyone in business.