Tatiana Adkins Southern New Hampshire University BUS- 206 Business Law I 23EW2 Jonathan McGovern October 2023
Ethics, what exactly is it? According to the Dynamic Business Law, "ethics is the study and practice of decision about what is good or right" (Kubasek et al., 2023, p.G -9). When it comes to business ethics, this refers to standards of business conduct. This means it does not result in a set of correct decisions. Business ethics can improve business decisions by serving as a reminder not to choose the first business option that comes to mind or enriches us in the short run. However, business ethics can never produce a list of correct business decisions that all ethical businesses will make. Ethics and Law are the different rules by which humans are expected to behave in society. Ethics represents an internal system of controls, and Law refers to an external mechanism of control as per the NIH (Bhattacharyya et al., 2022); however, there are limits to the Law, and the Law cannot make people honest, caring, or fair. Corporate Social Responsibility or "CSR" refers to the need for businesses to be good corporate citizens. CSR involves going beyond the law's requirements to protect the environment and contribute to social welfare. It is concerned with protecting the interests of all stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and the communities in which businesses operate (Corporate Social Responsibility, n.d.). This also involves a company balancing the needs of its stakeholders with its need to make a profit. In other words, it is the idea that businesses are responsible to society beyond their economic goals. Some examples of CSR include adopting humane employee practices, caring for the environment, and engaging in philanthropic endeavors. CSR relates to ethical business practices as the following ac: countability, transparency, and sustainability. Both CSR and business practices involve a company being accountable for its actions. It also requires transparency, meaning being open about the company's activities and decisions, which can build trust. Sustainability practice involves thinking about the long-term sustainability of the company and its activities, including
considering the environmental impact of the company's operations and making sustainable decisions for the future. If a company does not have an ethical background, it is unsure what the intentions of the company may be. An example of poor ethical business practices is Coca-Cola. According to the ethical consumer report by Tim Hunt, Coca-Cola is under two boycott calls due to the issues with its bottling plants in Colombia. They also have a poor record of the environment, being accused of taking water supplies from rural communities and falsifying environmental data (Hunt, 2022), in contrast to a good company with ethical business practices such as Aflac. Aflac is best known for insurance; however, one year after issuing its first sustainability bond, the company has allocated $252 million to Framework categories like Communities, Green building Renewable Energy, and Seriocomic Advancement and Empowerment. According to Green Citizen, Aflac also has a fair employment policy in hiring