Business ethics refers to contemporary organizational standards, principles, sets of values and norms that govern the actions and behavior of an individual in the business organization. Network Rail are of the belief that ethics is a responsibility that we all share, so it is of vital importance that everyone, including those we do business with, outside of Network Rail (our contractors, for example) are aware of what is expected of us.
Economist Milton Friedman articulates this view in an essay that is quite popular with business students, The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase its Profits.”1 According to Friedman, corporate officers have no obligation to support such social causes as hiring the hard-core unemployed to reduce poverty, or reducing pollution beyond that mandated by law.
The ethical responsibility of the capability of an item to deliver the expected value is not entirely borne by the individual who provided the item, nor by the individual who accepted it, but is subject to the communication that occurs between them prior to entering into the transaction agreement.
Altruistic behaviour expresses the social dimension in the form of utilitarian or mutual altruism-a helping concern for others combined with concern for one’s own self-interest; or in the form of moral altruism that reflects a helping concern for others even at considerable personal sacrifice or inconvenience.
Introduces students in the different models of ethical reasoning about business en management on the basis of cases (utilitarianism, deontogy and the problem of whistle blowing), justice oriented theories (with special attention paid to the social contract theory of Donaldson) en virtue ethics (especially the contribution of Solomon and the literature on ‘integrity’ ), with as special case: corruption.