Business ethics

Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied and professional ethics that addresses ethical and moral principles or ethical issues that may arise in a business environment. This applies to all aspects of doing business and is relevant to the behavior of individuals and entire organizations. These ethical standards come from individuals, statements of organizations or from the legal system. These norms, values, ethical and unethical practices are the principles that guide business. They help businesses maintain closer communication with their stakeholders.

Business ethics are modern organizational standards, principles, sets of values and norms that regulate the action and behavior of a person in an organization. Business ethics has two aspects: normative business ethics or descriptive business ethics. As a corporate practice and career specialization, this area of activity is mainly normative. Academics trying to understand business behavior use descriptive methods. The scale and number of business ethics issues reflect the interaction of profit-maximizing behavior with non-economic problems.

Interest in business ethics increased dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s, both in large corporations and in academic circles. For example, most large corporations today promote their commitment to non-economic values under such headings as ethical codes and social responsibility charters.

Adam Smith said: "People of the same profession rarely meet together, even for fun and entertainment, but the conversation ends with a conspiracy against the public or some kind of fiction to raise prices." Governments use laws and regulations to determine business behavior in favorable directions. Ethics indirectly regulates areas and details of behavior that are beyond the control of the state. The emergence of large corporations with limited relationships and sensitivity to the communities in which they operate has accelerated the development of formal ethical regimes.

Maintaining the ethical status is the responsibility of the head of the enterprise. According to the Journal of Business Ethics, "Ethical behavior management is one of the most common and complex problems that business organizations face today"

Business ethics reflects the norms of each historical period. Over time, norms develop, as a result of which accepted behavior becomes undesirable. Business ethics and related behaviors have also evolved. Business was involved in slavery, colonialism, and the Cold War.

The term "business ethics" was widely used in the United States in the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s, 40,000 students had completed at least 500 courses in business ethics, using about twenty textbooks and at least ten textbooks, with the support of professional societies, centers and journals on business ethics. The Business Ethics Society was founded in 1980. European business schools adopted the principles of business ethics after 1987, starting with the European Network of Business Ethics. In 1982, the first books in this field appeared.

Firms began maintaining their ethical status in the late 1980s and early 1990s, perhaps in an attempt to distance themselves from business scandals such as savings and credit crunch. By the end of the Cold War, the concept of business ethics had attracted the attention of academia, the media, and business firms. However, criticism of business practices has been criticized for violating the freedom of entrepreneurs, and critics have been accused of supporting communists. This flooded the discourse of business ethics both in the media and in academia. The Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Behavior (DII) was created to support corporate ethics of behavior. This era marked the beginning of the belief and support for self-regulation and free trade, which raised trade tariffs and barriers and allowed businesses to unite and expand in a global atmosphere.