Unit 3.5 revision Flashcards
What does business ethics mean?
Moral practices that businesses choose to follow but legally do not have to.
What does being socially responsible mean?
Acting in ways that show care and concern for all of society.
Who does a business have a responsibility to act ethically towards?
1) Employees
2) Environment
3) Customers
4) Consumers
Give 4 areas where business ethics are usually tested.
1) Advertising
2) Suppliers
3) Contracts
4) Pricing
A business cannot claim to be ethical firm if it ignores unethical practices by its suppliers by?
1) Use of child labour and forced labour
2) Production in sweatshops
3) Violation of the basic rights of workers
4) Ignoring health, safety and environmental standards
Give 5 advantages of acting businesses acting ethically.
1) Improved brand and business awareness and recognition
2) New sources of finance – e.g. from ethical investors
3) Higher revenues – demand from positive consumer support
4) Better employee motivation and recruitment/retain goof employees.
5) Avoid legal aspects
Give 5 disadvantages of acting businesses acting ethically.
1) Higher costs – e.g. sourcing from Fairtrade suppliers rather than lowest price
2) Higher overheads – e.g. training & communication of ethical policy
3) Reduces freedom to maximize profits
4) Time consuming to implement and train staff
5) A danger of building false expectations.
What are the 2 key influences on business ethics?
Individuals
Culture
What are the 4 approaches to business ethics?
1) The amoral business
2) The legalistic business
3) The repsonsive business
4) The ethical business
What is an amoral business?
Seeks to win at all costs
Anything is acceptable
What is a legalistic business?
Will obey the law but no more than that.
What is a responsive business?
Accepts that being ethical can pay off.
What is a trade off?
When something is given up in order to gain or achieve something else e.g investing in a business in order to make more profit.
Explain the two trade-offs between profits and ethical profits?
1) Acting ethically can lower business profits. Paying higher wages, recycling and only using ethical suppliers is likely to raise costs and lower profits.
2) Acting ethically can be appealing to customers and can motivate employees, leading to higher productivity and more sales, which will balance the cost of ethical policies.
What is a Pressure group?
Individuals or groups that seek to influence policies, laws and business behavior.
What issues do Pressure groups deal with?
Animal rights
Workers’ rights
The environment and world poverty.
What can pressure groups cause?
bad publicity for businesses that act unethically, which can damage their reputation.
Name 3 methods a pressure group could use to persuade a business to act responsibly.
Protests
Lobbying
Boycotting products
What is a business supply chain?
The steps involved in the manufacturing and distribution of goods.
What are 2 Short Term effects a business
can have on the Environment?
1) Air, noise and water pollution through manufacturing and industry
2) Traffic congestion through transport and deliveries.
What are 2 Long Term effects a business
can have on the Environment?
1) Climate change (global warming)
2) Depletion (running out of something) of land, food and natural resources.
List 5 different ways a business can try to reduce their damage to the environment.
1) Stop burning fuels
2) Reduce carbon footprint
3) Recycling ( reduce the amount of waste going into landfills and encourage households to do the same)
4) Using smaller font (less paper)
5) Using energy efficient light bulbs less energy being wasted.
Give 4 advantages of a business becoming environmentally friendly.
1) Increase business opportunities to differentiate their products to meet customer needs and make them greener
2) Reduces utility costs by using technologies that are energy efficient and less wasteful.
3) Premium prices and improved public image
4) Government/ council tax incentives
Give 3 disadvantages of a business becoming environmentally friendly.
1) Temporarily decrease profits
2) Takes time and effort
3) Decrease productivity ( If your purchasing department is required to search for and verify the green status of products they will spend more time purchasing than when they could just purchase the cheapest goods and services.)
What does international trade mean?
is the exchange of goods and services between different countries.
What is a developed country?
Countries with a relatively high income per person
What is a developing country?
Countries with a lower income per person than developed countries
What is an import?
An import is the purchase of a good or service from a foreign business that leads to a flow of money out of the
UK. The UK buyer will have to change pounds into the seller’s currency to make the transaction.
What is an Export?
An export is the sale of a good or service to a foreign buyer that leads to a flow of money into the UK. The
foreign buyer will have to change their currency into pounds to complete the purchase.
What are the following three factors have an affect on the level of development in a country,
Average incomes
Wages and prices
Quality and Technology of products: