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Seminar paper

Topic: Business ethics, ethical trade and


social responsibility

Student:
Semir Emini

Mentor:

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Bejtulla Demiri

Skopje 2016

ABSTRACT
This lecture deals with the manner how should businesses behave and cooperate with
each other and the potential customers.
The main point of this seminar paper is how to be ethical in global means. How to promote
ethics and why ethics are so important.
Business ethics ensure that a certain required level of trust exists between consumers and various
forms of market participants with businesses.
Law often guides business ethics, while other times business ethics provide a basic framework
that businesses may choose to follow to gain public acceptance.

INTRODUCTION
Ethics is the science of morals, the set of moral conceptions of a person. It includes usually the
standards of practice or the categories of conduct that are acceptable or not to a group with
common interests, in order to achieve those interests.
Business ethics is the study of proper business policies and practices regarding potentially
controversial issues, such as corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination,
corporate social responsibility and fiduciary responsibilities. Law often guides business ethics,
while other times business ethics provide a basic framework that businesses may choose to
follow to gain public acceptance.
The number of formal ethics and compliance programs is on the rise. Furthermore, in companies
with well-implemented programs, there is increased reporting, reducing ethics risk.
Well-implemented formal ethics and compliance programs dramatically increase reporting of
observed misconduct and also help to decrease the rate of misconduct.

Companies that couple a strong ethical culture with a well-implemented ethics and compliance
program experience the greatest reduction in ethics risk.

The strength of a companys enterprise-wide ethical culture has the greatest impact on

misconduct.
The strength of a companys formal ethics and compliance program has the greatest

impact on encouraging employee reporting.


Together, culture and programs maximize ethical behavior and appropriate reporting in
the workplace.

Ethical Trade

Ethical trade is the assumption of responsibility of retailers, brands, and suppliers to improve the
working conditions of the disadvantaged people in its supply chains. As of 2013, there are an
estimated 29.8 million people in slavery worldwide, with 10.5 million child labourers forced into
domestic work. The ethical trade activities of organisations such as Ethical Trading Initiative
endeavor to combat these prominent issues by forming alliances between corporate, trade union,
and voluntary sector members to implement ethical trade in business practices.
Ethical trading means looking beyond strictly economic objectives to consider the wider
implications of your business decisions. It is becoming increasingly important for those trading
internationally.
By considering social and environmental objectives when trading overseas, you can:

build sales, as customers increasingly choose to base their purchasing decisions on more

than strict financial factors


attract investment from ethically motivated investors
maintain staff loyalty and motivation, by treating people fairly and offering them chances

of development
enhance trust in your business, by fostering good relations and being transparent in your

activities
boost revenue, by opening up your business to new ideas
save money, for example by implementing better waste-management procedures.

How to promote socially responsibility?

To promote your business as socially responsible, you need to chart your progress in
implementing socially responsible activities and identify areas where you can make
improvements.
First you need to assess how far your business goes beyond fulfilling its minimum legal
obligations. This means carrying out a social responsibility audit in which you consider your
business' impact on:

the market - for example, how you promote yourself, how and where you obtain supplies
and how you sell your products or services

your workforce - the wages you pay, your employees' conditions and your equal
opportunities policies

the environment - for example, your emission, waste and consumption strategies

the community - for example, whether you are a 'good neighbour' and what you put back
into the community

human rights - such as taking into account not just your own direct relationships but also
your suppliers' business relationships

You should also have a look at:

Your design processes - for example, could you replace toxic substances with less
harmful ones? Are your products designed to be multifunctional or reusable?

Your energy consumption - for example, could you replace equipment with newer, more
energy-efficient or less polluting models?

Your resources - are you using renewable or recyclable materials? Do you recycle your
own waste?

Your environmental and health and safety training for employees.

REFERENCES
"Business Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)". Plato.stanford.edu. 2008-04-16.
Retrieved 2013-06-04.
www.wikipedia.org
http://www.bgateway.com/business-guides/sales-and-marketing/exporting-importing/ethicaltrading
The Ethics Resource Center - National Business Ethics
Activist Business Ethics Jacques Cory

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