| Category (3) questions are, unsurprisingly,
as many and varied as the functional areas they deal with. They are partly
a question of professional ethics to do with codes of conduct for practitioners
of the particular areas of business activity concerned, but they are mostly, and
more broadly, questions for society at large about the ethicality of particular
practices or even that area of activity as a whole. So, for example, ethical issues
linked to accounting and finance concern problems such as 'creative accounting'
(a selective and misleading presentation of financial data), 'auditor independence'
(a problem rooted in the fact that those being audited are also paying customers)
and insider trading (trading in securities on the basis of privileged information)
that go deep into the nature of these activities. Likewise, with marketing
ethics, as well as issues to do with honesty, intrusiveness, the marketing of
particular products (alcohol, tobacco, beauty products, fast cars, children's
toys, and so on) and the use of stereotypical and even offensive or sexist images
in advertising, there are also deeper questions about the essentially manipulative
nature of the whole exercise, the promotion of excessive consumption (and a corresponding
escalation in environmental impact) along with the promotion of materialistic
values in general. Because most people depend on employment for their livelihoods
and work is such a huge and important part of people's lives, ethical issues relating
to human resource management are almost certainly the most fraught as well as
perhaps the most numerous in the function-related category. They concern discrimination
on various grounds (race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age,
and attractiveness) along with other equal opportunity issues such as equal pay,
sexual harassment, and workplace diversity. In addition, there are questions about
workplace rights to do with privacy, drug testing, and participation, along with
questions about whistle blowing and workplace safety.
Category
(1)
Category (2)
Category
(3)
Category (4)
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