Ethics in Business
...olleges across the country, with more than forty thousand students enrolled (Business Ethics). Corporations began operating internationally. Accepted U.S. rules of business behavior no longer applied in all dealings with businesses and customers in other countries. In the 1990s, the U.S. government was applying a consensus style of leadership in attempt to make foreign corporations compete on an equal basis with U.S. businesses (Business Ethics). This led to governments becoming an integral part of the global competitive strategy for businesses. The process of ethical decision making in business is now represented by the philosophical, economical, sociological, psychological, and theological perspectives. I believe that the development of ethics begins in childhood. Jean Piaget was one of the most influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology. He was interested in how an organism adapts to its environment. Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development. These stages are: Sensorimotor stage-infancy, pre-operational stage-toddler and early childhood), Concrete operational stage-elementary and early adolescence, and Formal operational stage-adolescence and adulthood (Hummel 2003). Throughout all these stages the child is learning to interact with the environment, their language is developing, and their thinking process is developing. In the last stage as adults we should be able to think formally, make predictions and think hypothetically. Furthermore, in each of these stages we are learning from our environment, the people that surround us. We begin to learn what’s right from wrong. The theory of moral development was developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. His ideas of moral development are based on the premise that at birth, all humans are void of morals, ethics, and honesty. He identified the family as the first source of values and moral development for an individual. He believed that as one's intelligence and ability to interact with others matures, so does one's patterns of moral behavior (Barger 2000 ). I agree with both theories. Individuals are not born with an ability to understand and apply moral standards. Just as people’s physical, emotional, and cognitive abilities develop as they mature, so also their ability to deal with moral issues develops as they move through their lives. I feel that it is important for our society to have a business world. Business can be a good thing when it is done right. As a supervisor of a child program ethics plays a big role among myself and my staff. Today, the institution of business has become a major determiner of social values, of personal and family priorities, readily observable in our own society (Liebig 1990). It is not always easy to decide whether a person is morally responsible for having done something wrong. People are not always morally responsible for their wrongful acts. For example, a person may inflict an injury upon an innocent human being, but do so without knowing what he or she was doing. We would not hold the person morally responsible for that injury. What the person did was wrong but the person is excused by virtue of his or her ignorance (Velasquez 1992).When it comes to ethics, I try to emphasize the virtues of courage and justice with my staff. Courage is defined as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty (Merriam Webster 2003). It takes a courageous person to stand up to what is right and wrong. Sometimes, it is difficult to decide what is right and wrong. However, I tell my employees that if there is any doubt in their mind about something they should bring it to my attention. It is their moral responsibility to do so. One can be morally responsible for failing to act or failing to prevent an injury if one’s omission is free and knowledgeable and if one could and should have prevented the injury (Velasquez 1992). Every situation needs to be looked at carefully. The benefits and consequences need to be considered,...