Business Ethics

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know about it. Today, many corporations are still doing unethical things but they hide behind supposedly socially responsible initiatives and engage in many unethical actions behind closed doors that we don’t know about.

Lecture Notes:

Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Friedman (1960s) only responsibility is to make profit

Thunderbird School of Business in Arizona --? Students requested to take an oath of Ethical Behavior (Hippocratic oath for MBA students)

Famine on Rhodes: He should charge a reasonable wage that would be affordable to buyers and produce enough profit to support him as well

He should charge the lowest price he can afford

Price and Demand: If demand is natural and impacts supply, then charging higher prices to coincide with demand is ethical. However, if demand is increased as a result of a situational threat to survival, increasing price is unethical.

I compare it to monopolizing antiretroviral medications and increasing prices It’s unethical to raise prices because the survival and well being of individuals is dependent on the drugs

High level issues?

Is it legal?

Is there an ethical issue?

What is my reason?

Is it generalizable?

Is there utility?

Does it violate my virtues?

What are the facts? Increased production costs, expensive environmental regulations, Shareholder complaints, decreased profits, health concerns, manufacture creates carcinogens

Legal barriers: You cannot just fire a bunch of union workers

Ethical Barriers: Child labor, job loss, communities impacted

Who are primary stakeholders? Shareholders, employees + families, unions, towns, management, buyers and suppliers, environment

Economic Impacts: Stay and lose money or go and

Generics Case – Generalizable test, stakeholders

Patent: Exclusive rights (lasts 17-20yrs)

Monopolies: They are price makers

1970 India Patents act- permissible to reverse engineer a product and reproduce it that way because they only protected the process and not the end product