Business Ethics Implications - Essay Example

Name: Course: College: Tutor: Date: Business ethics comprises of values, principles and standards that guide behavior in the business world. The issue of business ethics is incorporated into corporate social responsibility and has been adopted by business for their own purposes especially that of increasing profits (Friedman, 2002). Most people concur that high ethical standards necessitate individuals and businesses to conform to sound moral principle. Nonetheless, ethical misconduct has become one of the major concerns in business today. Child labor is one of the problems that can be cited as evidence of declining ethical standards in business. In some countries, the local custom and law allow children as young as 10 years to be employed and set work quotas for the children. Most people argue that fair employment practices entail avoidance of child and forced labor to provide a safe and health workplace (DeGeorge, 2002). The issue of child labor has created a lot of controversy leading many and varied opinions about the ethics of child labor. This leads to the question as to whether it is ethical to hire kids in companies, and whether they should purchase and sell merchandises made by the children. To ascertain whether child labor is ethical or unethical, judgments that are more complex are needed that it appears ostensibly. Different societies have varying conceptions of childhood and the social experiences of these children. To some societies, it is ethical to employ children in factories because they are viewed as competent social actors with informed and informing views of their social world. Bourdillon et al (2009) argued that excluding children from work constitutes a primary denunciation of fundamental human rights codes. To others all forms of child labor should be eliminated by imposing universal labor standards across the globe to ban the practice. The International Conference on Child Labor held in Oslo in 1997 proposed that tolerating child labor is conflicting with the immense venture in human resources, which every nation must adapt to protect its future (ILO, 2002). Any argument on child labor ethics is dependent on the ethical position that is taken by people; it can be counteracted by the opposing argument. In the business world, a firm cannot assert to be ethical if it does not observe the ethical practices set by the country such as use of child labor and forced labor. Companies have progressively found themselves encountering external pressure to improve their ethics record of accomplishment. This arises from the advantages that businesses derive from ethical behavior. Such benefits are high revenues, improved business and brand awareness and recognition, better employee recruitment and motivation and new sources of finances from ethical investors. Employing underage people has been viewed by most developed country as unethical while most developing country employ children to work in firms. Child labor defined as full time work in factories by kids under the age of fourteen years is illegal in most countries in which it is practiced-this shows that the practice is taken as inappropriate even though it is still tolerated. This toleration shows the incapacity for a country to control its own laws, public corruption, ineffective government and other internal deficiencies. The issue of child labor often causes a dilemma when a company where child labor is not tolerated wishes to do business with firms in a country in which it is tolerated. For instance an American firm might believe that it is unethical to hire children since it is so in America, however if the company wishes to do business with firms in a country where child labor is tolerated, it is normally put in a dilemma to act ethically or unethically. Its situation may not be clear-cut. If the firm in question wishes to act ethically, the important decision is whether it considers child labor ethically justifiable. If it does not, then it cannot hire child labor nor can it promote the practice of hiring children by the people that it is dealing with. For if the practice is unethical, then to help promote and indirectly support the practice is at less indirectly support the practice is at least indirectly to act unethically. This raises the question whether there are ethical universals, such that what is unethical in one country is unethical everywhere. Child labor in generally unethical in the sense that it is wrong everywhere or that it is dependent on the local beliefs and conditions (Bourdillon et al.2009); it may be wrong in some countries and ethically acceptable in others. Those who argue that it is ethically unacceptable argue that it is wrong in all places in the world because it always deprive the children of the capacity to develop their talents in such a manner that will prepare them for a fruitful and active participation in their societies as adults (Clark et al, 2000). In this case, the acceptance of child labor unfairly cuts off many future possibilities for them, it repeatedly harms them physically and it unlawfully deprives them of education to which they have a right. Allowing the children to work violates their human rights both ethically and from the perspective of the Human Rights Declaration (Clark et al, 2000). The practice causes them worse outcomes than the alternative of educating them both for themselves and for the development and improvement of their society. Three basic frameworks can be used to assess whether child labor is ethically justifiable. The first is Universalism, a widespread and objective set of guidelines about ethics that are common across all cultures. According to this framework, all countries should outlaw child labor because employing under-aged children violates their basic human rights. International codes of conduct are based on the principle of universalism. This approach is employed by nearly all multinationals with reverence to child labor; it asserts that measures and instruments developed in a culture are in the same way applicable and appropriate in other cultures (Clark et al, 2000). This approach has be adopted universally and has led to some commentators arguing that a conventional perspective of Human Resource is emerging which is mostly individualist and United States based (Greenwood, 2002). The second framework is ethical relativism, which proposes that ethical behavior in any one country is determined by its own outstanding culture. Under this perspective, child labor is seen as a necessary practice due to a country’s poor economic environment, and thus it should be an accepted form of labor. This perspective takes a particularistic view of the culture as there are no universal standards (Mahoney, 2007). Different evaluation rules are based on the context or the situation. Ethical relativism denies any universal ethical norms or principles and confronts child labor with major objections. The main principle of ethical relativism perspective is that any behavior could therefore morally acceptable somewhere; that it entails that there are no universal moral principles at all; that moral debate and attempts at persuasion are ultimately pointless and that there is absolutely no role in any society for moral rebels or reformers, which can move the world (Mahoney, 2007). This perspective justifies cultural moral relativism and it has a major fallacy; it presumes that all cultures are ethically untouchable and are above ethical critique. The third framework is ethical imperialism, which states that cultural beliefs and standards of one particular culture should be imposed on other cultures. Many countries believe the U.S. is attempting to force its own ethical standards, which denounce the use of child labor, upon other countries. A clear example of this is evident in the United States efforts to ban all foreign products that were made with child labor. The law has loopholes that make enforcement difficult. As written, the ban “applies to products made by a child laborer confined against his or her will.” There is controversy in this law, which results from “confined against his or her will” statement. For instance, custom officials term working “against your will” as needing proof of coercion by the employer. Alternatively, child advocates believe that an underage worker is by definition working against his or her will (Bourdillon et al, 2009). Most companies care about business ethics because people are attracted to ethically and socially responsible companies. Fortune magazine regularly publishes the 100 best companies for which to work for employees (Covin, 2000). The public and consumers benefit from organizations acting in an ethically and socially responsible manner. Ethics matters in business because all stakeholders stand to gain when organizations, groups and individuals seek to do the right thing, as well as do things the right way. Ethical companies create investor loyalty, customer satisfaction, and business performance and profits (McClean, 2003). Failure to employ underage children in some countries is usually an avoidance of ethics collapse. The debate on child labor has called for a concurrence on separating divisions between children work and children labor and between child labor and the nastiest types of children employment. Those who argue that children should be allowed to work and some international organization such as ‘Save the Children”’ no longer employ the notion of ‘child labor’ because they argue that it yields a pessimistic image and they wish to draw attention to the constructive characteristics of child labor. Cussianovich (2002) argued that they believe its important to highlight a diverse standard, competent of tackling the adult and ethno-centrism, in addition to the culture and ethics of globalization, which deprives leading role to every person, and every culture. The distinguished model thwarts a productive discussion with the International Labor Organization and with the conventional association against child labor. ILO acknowledges the fact that work completed by kids can be a typical and even advantageous activity. ILO (2002) proposed that millions of young people legally carry out unpaid and paid work that is fitting their age and maturity level. This enables them to take dependability in addition to gaining dexterity and add to their families and their personal income and welfare, and they put in to the economies of their countries. Children carry out various work activities in widely different conditions (Pollitt & Jones, 2002). The work occurs down a continuum. At the last part of the scale, the work can be taken as advantageous as it promote capabilities and a sense of accountability without hindering leisure and school work; at the other side of the continuum, the work carried out by kids adjusts the form of child labor and turns exploitative and harmful. Child labor is termed as work that damages their development and health (Pollitt & Jones, 2002). From this argument, not every kind of activity should be considered as child labor. However, companies are supposed to be aware of the distinction between child work and child labor. The employment of child labor can ruin a company’s standing particularly where economic abuse of kids even by business partners is evident. Child labor damages a brand name and has strong consequences on stock and profit value (Pollitt & Jones, 2002). This shows that the issue of business ethics is important in business as it influences the company profitability. Fundamentally the abolition of child labor promotes skilled and health workers for tomorrow (Bourdillon et al, 2009). The abolition of child labor is a goal in itself. Child labor debases the human capital needed to attain sustainable economic development. The poverty-child labor cycle leads to score of unqualified and unskilled employees. Allowing child labor today causes a short supply of badly needed skills in the future. Kids fail to complete their primary education and thus most of them are uneducated and by no means attain the dexterity required to acquire a job and leads to the expansion of the contemporary economy ( Pollitt & Jones 2002). Alternatively, less developed countries justify the issue of child labor as children are taught the means to attain a livelihood because of poor circumstances. The issue of child labor is a very multifaceted phenomenon and thus it has led to many problems in its analysis and quantification (Pollitt & Jones, 2002). It is even worse when it entails the nastiest types of child manual labor as the workers hide the children and their work is invisible. Millions of children work worldwide and it is hard to control the situation. The issue of business ethics is important. Businesses represent the arenas within which most people spend much of their waking lives and the sheer scale of some of their operations makes many multinational corporations more influential in world affairs (not just business affairs) than some governments. Hence, the actions of corporations, whether judged ‘good’ or ‘bad’, can affect many, many people, both within and outside the organizations. Minimizing the negative effects of corporate behaviour thus becomes an issue, not just for business, but also for the political and social spheres of human activity. The ethical underpinnings of child labor in business allow them to determine where the weight of evidence lies. In business like in all other human endeavors, executives must be read to pay for the ethical behavior costs. Hoffman & Moore (1995), the costs may sometimes seem high, but that it the risk businesses take in valuing and preserving their integrity. Child labor is an ethical issue and managing properly locally and internationally entails managing the codes of conduct on child labor issues. References Aaronson, S. & Reeves, J. (2002). Corporate Responsibility in the Global Village: The Role of Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: National Policy Association. Bourdillon, M., Meyers, W. & White, B. (2009). Reassessing Working Children and Minimum Age Standards. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 29.3-4. Clark, T., Grant, D. & Heijltjes, M. (2000) ‘Researching comparative and international human resource management’, International Studies of Management & Organization, vol. 29, no. 4 pp. 6-23 at p. 10. Colvin, G. (2000). The amazing future of business. Fortune, F6-F10. Cussianovich, A. (2002). Approaches to Human Rights Related Typology of Child Labor. Conference Paper German NGO Forum on Child labor. DeGeorge, R. (2000). Business ethics and the challenge of the information age. Business Ethics Quarterly, 10(1), 63-72. 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