Business Ethics

Milton Friedman believes that the primary telos of a business is to maximize profit for its owners and disburse dividends to shareholders (Schaefer 2008; Carroll & Shabana 2014, 88). The above mentioned theory correlates with the ethical attributes of Utilitarianism that “wires” some managers in their decision making processes who believes that primary prerogative of business is to indulge in profiteering and pay little or no attention to the altruistic CSR or the concerns of triple bottom line theory associated with people and planet (Lantos 2001; Cai & Aguilar 2014, 103).  

However, in pursuance of reaching ethical decisions, managers must balance the goal of Utilitarianism and endeavor to also imbibe attributes of deontology and virtue ethics in their decision making (Holmes 1909). Consequently the question needs to be asked should decisions have attributes of rationality and reasonableness in accordance to reasons, facts, and commitment and to foresee and analyze risks of harm upon their decision making process? As such, code of ethics become an essential element of firms regardless of size, shape and age in order to promote moral behavior which will help discourage any unethical behavior including moral myopia and muteness in their decision making process (Farrell, Farrell and Cobbin 2002). Should managers take decision based on tacit knowledge and heuristics? Or should managers apply structured frameworks such as Phronesis and S.T.A.R in reaching decisions within the workplace?