Exam 3: Ethics & Social Responsibility

You are an ethics consultant,and a group of managers has asked you for some guidelines to determine the ethicality of a decision.You tell the managers that one cannot guarantee the rightness of a decision,but a checklist can improve the chances of a decision being ethical.What are six questions you would tell the managers to put on this checklist?

Suppliers are considered stakeholders of a firm.

_____ refers to the moral principles or values that generally govern the conduct of an individual or a group.

General Mills is consistently ranked among the top five contributors of food in the United States.The company also steps forward to help support victims of natural disasters with food donations to organizations such as the American Red Cross.These donations of food are an example of:

Why do corporations engage in ethical training?

Florida Hospitals A group of hospital administrators in Florida were discussing the amount of resources used to care for patients that were illegal immigrants and had no medical insurance. One man discussed how his hospital had spent over $2 million on one illegal immigrant who had no family or friends and who was not getting better. Another administrator stated that his hospital was losing $20 million annually in order to provide care for the influx of illegal immigrants into the state. After a great deal of discussion, it was determined that there was probably nothing anyone of them could do about the situation, and that each of them had very definite ideas about how to deal with the problems. -Refer to Florida Hospitals.When one administrator said,"We got into medicine to help people and these illegals without insurance need our help as much as anyone else does," he was expressing his opinion in accordance with the _____ ethical theory.

Drug Marketing Pharmaceutical companies spent $4.4 billion on prescription drug advertising in 2008, mostly on television and in magazines. While the Internet is becoming a more prominent medium to reach consumers and is the primary source used to seek health information, these companies spent less than $130 million on Web marketing. One reason is that there are no guidelines, which makes these heavily-regulated marketers uneasy. For example, television commercials for prescription drugs must include disclosures regarding the major side effects if the brand name is mentioned in the ad. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that existing regulations address many of the Internet advertising issues, but other aspects of Web marketing, such as social networking and search marketing, must be reviewed. That's why the FDA hearings on this issue were attended by pharmaceutical giants and Web companies like Google, Yahoo, and WebMD Health. -Refer to Drug Marketing.Which level of the pyramid of social responsibility is most relevant to this situation in which the drug companies want to ensure that they are "playing by the rules"?

According to _____,the choice that yields the greatest benefit to the most people is the choice that is ethically correct.

How do supporters of corporate social responsibility respond to its critics?

Rainforest Action Network (RAN)campaigns for the forests,their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life.RAN relies on grassroots organizing,media stunts,and the occasional use of non-violent civil disobedience to pressure corporations into publicly adopting environmental policies that address issues ranging from deforestation to global warming.RAN uses an active civil society to direct:

Sustainability refers a business's concern for society's welfare.

Morals are rules people develop as a result of cultural values and norms.

The four components of the pyramid of corporate social responsibility are:

_____ is the concern of business for the long-range welfare of both the company and its relationships to the society within which it operates.

Drug Marketing Pharmaceutical companies spent $4.4 billion on prescription drug advertising in 2008, mostly on television and in magazines. While the Internet is becoming a more prominent medium to reach consumers and is the primary source used to seek health information, these companies spent less than $130 million on Web marketing. One reason is that there are no guidelines, which makes these heavily-regulated marketers uneasy. For example, television commercials for prescription drugs must include disclosures regarding the major side effects if the brand name is mentioned in the ad. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that existing regulations address many of the Internet advertising issues, but other aspects of Web marketing, such as social networking and search marketing, must be reviewed. That's why the FDA hearings on this issue were attended by pharmaceutical giants and Web companies like Google, Yahoo, and WebMD Health. -Refer to Drug Marketing.If a drug manufacturer donated $5 to AIDS research for every prescription sold in the United States,this would be an example of:

Top managers who behave ethically can influence others in an organization to behave ethically.

How does self-regulation influence social control?

The media is identified by the text as one of the six modes of social control in an open and democratic society.

The _____ is a moral philosophy that emphasizes character rather than rules or consequences.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)Company has donated almost $300,000 to 58 local governments and community-based organizations for local economic development projects.Recipients of these grants include the San Benito County Economic Development Corporation's Business Outreach Program,the San Jose Conservation Corps' Hennessy Place Affordable Single-Family Housing Project,and Mariposa County's Business Development Training Program.This sort of donation indicates PG&E was operating at a(n)_____ responsibility level of the pyramid of corporate social responsibility.