David Lemuel E. Garcia                                                                                        

10564721      BS-IM

Business Ethics:

A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach 3^rd Edition

By: Joseph W. Weiss

Chapter 1: Business Ethics, the Changing Environment, and Stakeholder Management

                        “Ethical reasoning helps individuals sort through conflicting opinions and information in order to solve moral dilemmas.”

            - Ethical reasoning would be a good way to sift your way through problems, conflicts or moral dilemmas that can be difficult to solve as it has a framework that can be defended and has a good structure in answering problems with solid defenses that can support your ideology and reasoning.

Summary of the Chapter:

            Chapter one was about business ethics and the changing environment, what is business ethics and what is its importance, what are the levels of business ethics, what are the five myths about business ethics, what would be the implications and uses of ethical reasoning in business, and if it is possible to actually teach business ethics and if people can be trained in order to actually have the principles of business ethics.

Chapter 2: Stakeholder and Issues Management Approaches

                        “The ethical dimension of the stakeholder theory is based on the view that profit maximization is constrained by justice, that regard for individual rights should be extended to all constituencies that have a stake in the affairs of a business, and that organizations are not simple or only “economic” in nature but can and do act in socially responsible ways as members of communities. “

            - By abiding to the legal aspects of a business, additional costs would be implied to the company thus reducing the return of investment that can be produced. Though it won’t be ethical not to do those things, profit maximization isn’t actually constrained by ethical rules and regulations because these ethical theories make the business have a stronger foundation so it won’t be turned down easily as it encounters bigger problems.

Summary of the Chapter:

            This chapter argues in the point of why should the business use a stakeholder management approach for business ethics, what is the real meaning of stakeholder management approach, the relationship of stakeholder approach and ethical reasoning, the moral responsibilities of functional area professionals, the three issues management approach, and the two crisis management approach.

Chapter 3: Ethical Principles, Quick Tests, and Decision-making Guidelines

                        “Ethical standards used in a person’s reasoning should be consistent. When inconsistencies among a person’s ethical standard in an argument or decision is discovered, one or more of the standards must be modified.”

                        - Consistencies is a must because it would be harder to picture out what a person would be trying to say if he or she is always changing what he or she is supposed to say or what are the areas that he or she would want to clear out. Others might say that they don’t agree with these things but then might change the next time you talk and say that they agree and that would be very hard to take care of.

Summary of the Chapter:

            This chapter teaches us on how to create decision criteria’s for ethical reasoning. It also talked about ethical relativism as a self-interest approach, utilitarianism as a consequentialist approach, universalism as a deontological approach, the rights as an entitlement-based approach, justice, its procedures, compensation, and retribution, immoral, amoral, and moral management, four social responsibility roles, individual ethical decision-making styles, quick ethical tests, and concluding comments.