Why Is Business Ethics a Utilitarian Action in the Real World?

Why is business ethics a utilitarian action in the real world?

Within the recent decade there has been a rise in awareness of global warming and ethical business practices within the general public and consumers. Just like human beings businesses are held liable and accountable for their practices. In the recent decade there has being a rise in their using these ethical standards as a means to create an image in consumers minds that their business practices are ethical. Most consumers are easily convinced to buy products or services through advertising schemes and some of these that companies practice are advertising their ethical practices in order to convince consumers that their companies are in fact very ethical even though this may not be the case for real. Ethics and business practice to maximize profits cannot go hand in hand and only in certain cases can be actually viable. Moreover, the majority of consumers will not buy products or services based on the company’s ethical practices, but rather if they will maximize their utility from the good or service in question. Only those that can afford to be selective in their choices of consumer goods or services they purchase based on ethical practices will actually be affected by the ethical practices of a company. Therefore, although having ethical business standards as the set norm would actually benefit the public in terms of the greater good of the world, it is not economically viable in most cases or actually the truth behind the reason they are practiced.

In addition, small businesses cannot actually afford to be ethically right in their practices. Most of these businesses do not have the capital in order to be ethically right or promote such actions within their organizations; they have a hard time competing with large competitors that have achieved lower economies of scale and can sell their product cheaply. Small businesses will focus on becoming profitable and have the maximum profit margins, being ethical is a second concern for them and most probably something they will look into once they too have achieved economies of scale. Small businesses also usually focus on a narrow market or a small one; they do not have to interact with global partners or customers. Also, employees will most probably know the market and the values and ethical standards that exist within this market and act accordingly if needed to. Finally, small businesses do not have to take into account ethical practices to a great extent or rather cannot actually afford to so in most cases.

On the other hand, large businesses can afford such practices as they have huge cash flows and reserves. Yet, this image of large companies being ethically right in their operations may be in order to hide something that they are doing that may be wrong ethically. For, example Shell Oil lead a campaign in the late 90’s that promoted the company with an image that it was investing and heading into alternative energy sources. This was done in order to hide its image that it was a huge oil company that polluted huge amounts of pollutants in the environment or to trick consumers into thinking that it was a company that cared about the environment, even though this was not the case. Many other companies have done such campaigns in order to improve their public relations image with consumers; also organizations such as Microsoft have opened up charity organizations or donated money to charities. These actions have double effects, they improve the public image of a company and also, which is more the reason behind the action, they will exempt the companies from paying certain taxes or lower their tax bill in the end of the fiscal year. Most of these large global companies are also head quartered in developed nations, where the standard