Aristotle said, “The end and purpose of the polis is the good life”. Adam Smith categorized the good life in terms of material goods and intellectual and moral excellence’s of character. Smith in his The Wealth of Nations commented, “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” Ethical misconduct has become a key concern in business today. Ethics is the main area of corporate governance, and management must take responsibility for their actions on global community scale. Ethics in business and shareholders desires for profitability are not always put on the same pedestal, and it is the responsibility of the executive management to ensure ethics surpass profitability. The 2008 financial crisis initiated critics to inquire about the ethics of the executives who were put in charge of large financial institutions around the Continue reading
Business Ethics
Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and business organizations as a whole. Business ethics can be both a normative and a descriptive discipline. As a corporate practice and a career specialization, the field is primarily normative. In academia descriptive approaches are also taken. The range and quantity of business ethical issues reflects the degree to which business is perceived to be at odds with non-economic social values.
Ethical Reasoning
Ethics is a term which refers to moral philosophy that focuses on the aspects of good life and the difference between better and worse. Ethics is concerned about the rules of human behavior and considers whether or not there is any objective right or wrong. Furthermore, ethics is concerned about the foundations of moral principles and how it evolved. Considering the definition of ethics, it can be deemed that its main objective is to guide the society on deciding what is good from bad and what is better from worse which is also referred to as normative ethics. This may be done in a general way or may address certain ethical issues only. Another form or ethics is termed as meta-ethics wherein the meaning of ethical language is analyzed to identify their true meaning. Simply speaking, the true meaning of referring to something as a moral act or a right Continue reading
Ethical Hackers and Ethical Hacking
An ethical hacker is a security professional who helps organization to take defensive measures against malicious attacks and usually the process he doing to find those vulnerable point is called Ethical Hacking. Sometimes this is also known as Penetration Testing or Intuition Testing. In this case, the ethical hackers are getting into the minds of computer criminals; think like them to find about innovative ways the hackers may use to get into the systems. Then organizations can take required actions to avoid those vulnerabilities. It has identified that the almost all computer systems have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a hacker to come to do damages. This can be due to an unpatched application, a misconfigured router or a rough network device and it will be not able to detect unless penetrate the networks and assess the security posture for vulnerabilities and exposures regular basis. As the hacking is Continue reading
Industrial Espionage
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines industrial espionage as “an individual or private business entity sponsorship or coordination of intelligence activity conducted for the purpose of enhancing their advantage in the marketplace.” While this definition may imply Industrial Espionage to be more or less the same as business or competitive intelligence, but there is an essential difference between the two – while business intelligence is generally under private sponsorship using an “open” methodology, espionage may be either government or privately sponsored and clandestine. Industrial Espionage is the process of collecting information and data for the purpose of generating revenue. Generating revenue is very important aspect for these people. They are not thrill seeker, if the compensation does not justify the reward they will not bother attempting to collect the required information. Individuals who commit Industrial Espionage are not looking for information for information sake, but for information that will Continue reading
The Role of External Auditors in Corporate Governance
Corporate governance is a central and dynamic aspect of business. Corporate governance is the relationship among various participants in determining the direction and performance of corporations. The main participants are the shareholders, the management and the board of directors. Corporate governance is the process whereby directors of a company are monitored and controlled. There are two areas considered to be fundamental to corporate governance, one is supervision and monitoring of management performance and the other is ensuring accountability of management to shareholders and other stakeholders. Till now, probably the two most important basic elements of good corporate governance have been “full disclosure” and the presence of independent directors and auditors, who each has their own ways to confirm that the data provided by the corporation are true and fairly stated. The contents of full disclosure are listed out in regulatory demands and professional pronouncements, and companies are expected to fully Continue reading
Social Innovation Concept – Fair Trade
Community and its citizens require protection from exploitation from a business person. The social innovation is one of the approaches to deal with this problem. It is the act of coming up with concepts and deploying them to resolve problems in aid to social development. The non-profit sector plays an essential role in fostering and implementing social innovation. These non-profit sectors involve themselves in policymakers, academics, practitioners and general community engagement. The sector emphases on changing the power structure to benefit defenseless groups in the society. In other words, it helps the community to have bargaining power in the economic or social life. The community engagement is the act of involving the general public in decision making on matters affecting their life. The following are categories of community engagement theory: Planning and Decision Making, Community Development, and Engaging People in Service Delivery. In Planning and Decision Making, this is where Continue reading