Focus on speaking

1. Comment on the words of David M. Gates: “We may go down in history as an elegant technological society which underwent biological disintegration through lack of economic understanding”.

2. Using the information you gained from the text, prove that restoring the environment and making money can be combined in one process.

Unit 4 Business Ethics

Pre-text exercises

1. a) Make sure that you know how to pronounce the following words, consult the dictionary if necessary:

ethics, to constitute, to illuminate, harassment, legitimacy, whistle, bristle, governance, dimension, commitment, bribery, exploitation, vacuum, unethical, necessarily, legal – illegal – legality, mere, infallible, to occur, greed, desirable, anticipate, egoist, motto, tough, falsify, accumulate, auditor, inaccurate, to pursue, psychological, violate

b) Translate these words into Russian.

Now read the following text and do the exercises after it.

Text

Ethics is a discipline dealing with "good" or "bad"("right and wrong" or "fair and unfair" or "just and unjust") choices or behavior. This discipline involves questions of what constitutes moral responsibility (duties) and to whom the duties are owed. Most societies adopt a minimum code of ethics, that is, laws, for the purpose of governing relations among people as individuals, partnerships, corporations, and other groups.

Although the concept of ethics and ethical duties may seem abstract, in fact ethics plays an active role in our lives. It affects and gives meaning to the decisions we make. We constantly apply our values and moral convictions to our actions and decisions, frequently without being aware that we are doing so. The clothes we buy, the music we prefer, the way we treat our friends and families - these and other everyday activities and decisions relate to values and goals.

Business Ethics focuses on what constitutes right or wrong behavior in the world of business and on how moral principles are applied by business-persons to situations that arise in their daily activities in the workplace.

Some examples of the many business ethics questions illuminate the definition of business ethics. In the employment relationship, countless ethical issues concern the safety requirements, civil rights (such as equal treatment and freedom from sexual harassment), and the legitimacy of whistle blowing. In the relationship of business with its customers, ethical issues spread to marketing techniques, product safety, and consumer protection. The relationship between business and its owners bristles with ethical questions involving corporate governance and management's duties to the shareholders. The relationship among competing businesses involves numerous ethical matters, including fair competition and collusive conduct. The interaction between business and society at large has additional ethical dimensions: pollution of the environment, commitment to the community, and depletion of natural resources. Not only do all of these issues recur at the international level, but additional ones present themselves, such as bribery of foreign officials, exploitation of less developed countries, and conflicts among different cultures and value systems.