Business Essentials, 12/e

Summary of Learning Objectives

Objective 2-1

1. Explain how individuals develop their personal codes of ethics and why ethics are important in the workplace.

Ethics are beliefs about what’s right and wrong or good and bad. Ethical behavior conforms to individual beliefs and social norms about what’s right and good, and unethical behavior is behavior that individual beliefs and social norms define as wrong and bad. Though ethical behavior and the law are often the same, there can also be ambiguity. Managerial ethics are standards of behavior that guide managers. Managerial ethics can affect people’s work in three broad categories: (1) behavior toward employees, (2) behavior toward the organization, and (3) behavior toward other economic agents ...