FOCUSED LEARNING STUDY GUIDE

1. Ethics defined: Study of Morals; The standards by which we determine what is right or wrong, good or bad/evil, ethical or unethical; inquiry into the nature and grounds of morality where the term morality is taken to mean moral judgments, standards and rules of conduct.; the study and philosophy of human conduct, with an emphasis on determining right and wrong.
2. Business ethics defined: the principles, values, and standards that guide behavior in the world of business.
3. Corporation: a group of equity investors gather to form a separate legal entity per a corporate charter.
4. Sarbanes-Oxley: passed in 2002; made securities fraud a criminal offense and stiffened penalties for corporate fraud; created an accounting oversight board that requires corporations to establish codes of ethics for financial reporting leading to greater transparency; top executives must sign off on financial reports, making them liable for any fraud; company executives must disclose stock sales immediately and prohibits companies form making loans to top managers
5. Ethical issue: A problem situation or opportunity that requires an individual, group or organization to choose among several wrong or unethical actions; Within the Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making (Figure 5.1 on pg 129) in Business the first step is to recognize that an ethical issue requires an individual or work group to choose among several actions that various stakeholders inside or outside the firm will ultimately evaluate as right or wrong; Ethical issue intensity relates to its perceived importance to the decision maker, whether that be an individual, work group, and/or organization.
6. Corruption:
7. Fairness: The quality of being just equitable and impartial; overlaps with concepts of justice equity equality and morality.
8. Fiduciaries: legal or ethical relationship between 2 or more parties
9. Psychopath – checklist:
The World Health Organization's Manual of Mental Disorders, Personality Diagnostic
Checklist provides the following criteria for the diagnosis of a psychopath: ➢ Callous unconcern for the feelings of others; ➢ Incapacity for maintaining enduring relationships; ➢ Reckless disregard for the safety of others; ➢ Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit; ➢ Incapacity to experience guilt; ➢ Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior.
10. Profits, ROI, ROA: Traditional Quantitative Dimensions of Economic Motivation in the Moral Consideration on the Path to Organization Performance model.
11. Conflict of interest: Exists when an individual must choose whether to advance his or her own interests, those of the organizations, or those of some other group.
12. Corporate intelligence/espionage: The collection and analysis of information on markets, technologies, customers, and competitors, as well as socioeconomic and external political trends; there are three distinct type of models: 1) passive monitoring system, 2) tactical field support, and 3) support dedicated to top-management strategy.
13. Bribery: The practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage.
14. Moral philosophy: ideal moral perspectives that provide individuals with abstract principles for guiding their social existence; determines or contributes to ethical decision making process in business
15. Kohlberg's model (CMD): six stage model developed by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg; dictates that people make different decisions in similar ethical situations because they are in different moral development stages: 1) Punishment and Obedience, 2) Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange, 3) Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships, and Conformity, 4) Social System and Conscience Maintenance, 5) Prior Rights, Social Contract, or Utility, and 6) Universal Ethical Principles
16. Teleological: Stipulates that acts are morally