College of
Business
Administration
College of
Business
Administration
The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business
1) Consider the following, from Bellah et al. The Good Society:
"We often hear that only technical reason can really be taught, and our educational commitments from primary school to university seem to embody that belief...But technical reason alone, as we have seen, is insufficient to manage our social difficulties or make sense of our lives...Even when we see that the solution must have something to do with institutions, we once again look for a technical solution in some kind of "management science" rather than trying to understand the inherently moral nature of institutions...How does your EMBA educational experience so far 'square' with the preceding claim? What education and/or experience have you had with the 'moral' side of corporations? In what ways do you factor such considerations in to your business decision-making?
2) With respect to the Business Week article 'Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful,' what are the key issues in this case? How would you go about thinking through these issues?
3) In `The Capitalist Threat', George Soros points out that...
The main scientific underpinning of the laissez-faire ideology is the theory that free and competitive markets bring supply and demand into equilibrium and thereby ensure the best allocation of resources. This is widely accepted as an eternal verity, and in a sense it is one. Economic theory is an axiomatic system: as long as the basic assumptions hold, the conclusions follow. But when we examine the assumptions closely, we find that they do not apply to the real world.What are the assumptions underlying the free-market model? Upon what view of human nature is the notion of the free market based? Is this an 'accurate' view? What evidence can you offer in defense of your answer? Is human nature subject to change?4) What is the relationship between government and economics? Does one 'type' of economic system presuppose the existence of one 'type' of political system? Why or why not?
5) What is the corporation? What does it take to be considered a 'moral entity'? Can the corporation appropriately be considered a moral entity? Why or why not?
6) It has been claimed (ref: The Good Society) that "what we have often forgotten is that though economic markets operate in some ways through an autonomous logic of their own, they can exist only because of certain institutional arrangements..."
What are these 'institutional arrangements that brought corporations into being'--and which continue to support their existence? Can you conceive of corporations without supporting institutions? How autonomous is the free market?7) For whose benefit ought the corporation act?
8) Is a human life worth more or less than $879,000? What factors ought we to consider when placing a value on human life?
9) What moral justification can be offered in defense of market economies?
10) What (if any) is a corporation's social responsibility? Where the corporation is concerned, what are the differences between moral responsibility, social responsibility, and legal responsibility?
11) Distinguish the constructs of effectiveness and efficiency. Provide a definition for efficiency. What is the virtue of efficiency? What would the practical implications were SDSU to become more efficient? What would you recommend in situations in which gains in efficiency were to come only at the expense of organizational effectiveness?
12) Rachels outlines social contract theory as the view that "morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others follow those rules as well."
What are the rules that you would agree to under such conditions?
How might acceptance of the premises underlying social contract theory have impacted the playing of the 'Commons Game'?
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