Exam 9: Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Sustainability, and Strategy

A) deal chiefly with standards a company has (and that are elaborated in its code of ethics) about what is right and wrong insofar as the conduct of its business is concerned and about what behaviors are expected of company personnel.
B) deal chiefly with the behaviors that a company's board of directors expects of all company personnel in both their conduct on-the-job and their conduct off-the-job.
C) involve the rules a company's top management and board of directors make about "what is right" and "what is wrong."
D) are not materially different from ethical principles in general.
E) are generally less stringent than the ethical principles for society at large because it is well understood that businesses should not be expected to operate any differently than what the law requires of them.

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D

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A) violates ethical principles of right and wrong in all countries.
B) is ethically acceptable according to the principle of ethical universalism and ethically unacceptable according to the principle of ethical relativism.
C) is acceptable to immoral managers but not to amoral managers.
D) is one of the thorniest ethical problems that multinational companies face because paying bribes is normal and customary in some countries and ethically or legally forbidden in others.
E) is more acceptable in dealing with a company's suppliers than in dealing with a company's customers.

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A) there is no such thing as "moral free space"-all ethical standards are determined by societal norms, and individuals have an implied social contract to live up to these standards.
B) few nations or cultures have common moral agreement on what is ethically right and wrong.
C) there should be no absolute limits put on what actions and behaviors fall inside the boundaries of what is ethically or morally right and which actions/behaviors fall outside.
D) adherence to universal ethical norms always take precedence over local ethical norms.
E) each country/culture/society has commonly held views about what constitutes ethically appropriate actions/behaviors; these common standards of what is ethical and what is not combine to form a "social contract" that all individuals in that country/culture/society are obligated to observe.

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A) base their standards of what is ethical and what is unethical on the Global Code of Ethical Conduct first developed in 1935 and since subscribed to by the governments of 180 countries.
B) quickly find themselves on a slippery slope with no higher order moral compass if they operate in countries where ethical standards vary considerably from country to country.
C) have no fair way to judge the ethical correctness of the conduct of company personnel.
D) have a one-size-fits-all set of ethical standards.
E) end up allowing each company employee to determine what set of ethical standards to observe.

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A) the school of ethical relativism.
B) the school of ethical universalism.
C) integrated social contracts theory.
D) the School of Morally Correct Thinking and Behavior based in Rome, Italy.
E) the Global Code of Ethical and Social Morality developed by the United Nations.

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A) Actions to ensure that the company's strategy is ethical and that ethical principles will be observed in operating the business
B) Making charitable contributions, donating money and the time of company personnel to community service endeavors, supporting various worthy organizational causes, and reaching out to make a difference in the lives of the disadvantaged
C) Actions to look out exclusively for the best interests of shareholders
D) Actions to protect or enhance the environment (apart from what is required by governmental authorities)
E) Actions to create a work environment that enhances employee well-being and makes the company a great place to work

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A) Actions to enhance workforce diversity and make the company a great place to work
B) Making charitable contributions and donating money and the time of company personnel to community service endeavors
C) Actions to protect or enhance the environment
D) Conscious efforts to ensure that all elements of the company's strategy are ethical and actions to protect or enhance the environment (beyond what is legally required)
E) Actions to keep prices low enough that the company's profits will not be viewed by the general public as obscenely high or exorbitant

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A) developing a consensus among companies worldwide as to what ethical principles that businesses should be expected to observe in the course of conducting their operations.
B) what ethical behaviors should be expected of company personnel in the course of doing their jobs.
C) the application of general ethical principles and standards to the actions and decisions of companies and the behavior of company personnel.
D) developing a special set of ethical standards for businesses to observe in conducting their affairs.
E) picking and choosing among the consensus ethical standards of society to arrive at a set of ethical standards that apply directly to operating a business.

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C

A) In a multinational company, application of ethical relativism equates to multiple sets of ethical standards.
B) There are few absolutes when it comes to business ethics and thus few ethical absolutes for consistently judging a company's conduct in various countries and markets.
C) The best and fairest way for a multinational company to approach the enforcement of ethical standards companywide is to reject ethical universalism and pursue ethical relativism.
D) A company that adopts the principle of ethical relativism and holds company personnel to local ethical standards necessarily assumes that what prevails as local morality is an adequate guide to ethical behavior-this assumption is ethically dangerous.
E) According to the ethical relativism school of thinking, a "one-size-fits-all" template for judging the ethical appropriateness of business actions and the behaviors of company personnel does not exist.

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A) A company is not demonstrating an adequate degree of social responsibility or endeavoring to be a model corporate citizen unless it spends 5% (or more) of pretax profits on social responsibility initiatives.
B) Social responsibility strategies that have the effect of both providing valuable social benefits and fulfilling customer needs in a superior fashion can lead to competitive advantage.
C) A few companies have integrated social responsibility and/or environmental sustainability objectives into their missions and overall performance targets; they view social performance and environmental metrics as an essential component of judging the company's overall future performance.
D) Unless a company's social responsibility initiatives become part of the way it operates its business every day, the initiatives are unlikely to be fully effective.
E) While the strategies and actions of all socially responsible companies have a sameness in the sense of drawing on the same categories of socially responsible behavior, each company's version of being socially responsible is unique.

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A) The higher the public profile of a company or brand, the greater the scrutiny of its activities and the higher the potential for it to become a target for pressure group action.
B) Acting in a socially responsible manner nearly always results in higher profits and a higher stock price for shareholders.
C) To the extent that a company's socially responsible behavior wins applause from consumers and fortifies its reputation, a company may win additional patronage.
D) Some employees feel better about working for a company committed to improving society-a condition that can contribute to lower turnover and better worker productivity.
E) Companies with deservedly good reputations for contributing time and money to the betterment of society are better able to attract and retain employees compared to companies with tarnished reputations.

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A) it generates internal benefits (as concerns employee recruiting, workforce retention, employee morale, and training costs) .
B) it reduces the risk of reputation-damaging incidents.
C) it is in the best interest of shareholders.
D) it can lead to increased buyer patronage.
E) All of these.

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A) defines what is meant by ethical relativism.
B) defines what is meant by ethical universalism.
C) is the foundation of integrated social contracts theory.
D) is the basis for the theory of ethical variation.
E) is the guiding principle of the Global Code of Ethical and Social Morality created by the United Nations.

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A) universal ethical principles apply in those situations where most all societies-endowed with rationality and moral knowledge-have common moral agreement on what is wrong and thereby put limits on what actions and behaviors fall inside the boundaries of what is right and which ones fall outside.
B) commonly held views about what is morally right and wrong form a contract with society that is binding on all individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses in terms of establishing right and wrong and in drawing the line between ethical and unethical behaviors
C) universal ethical principles or norms leave some "moral free space" for the people in a particular country (or local culture or even a company) to make specific interpretations of what other actions may or may not be permissible within the bounds defined by universal ethical principles.
D) universal ethical norms always take precedence over local ethical norms.
E) All of these.

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