Business ethics can take the form of a descriptive field (subject area ) or normative field. The descriptive discipline is applied in the academic world. The normative discipline is basically implemented as a corporate device and it is also utilized in the form of career specialization.
The number and degree of business ethical issues gives the evidence of how much a business is compliant with the social values (non-economic).
The different forms of business ethics can be categorized into the following types:
General business ethics
These ethics deal with the following issues:- Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
- Fiduciary responsibility
- Corporate governance
- Industrial espionage
- Hostile take-overs
- Corporate manslaughter
- Political contributions
Professional business ethics
The professional business ethics can be categorized into the following types:Ethics of human resource management (HRM)
- Discrimination issues
- Strike breaking or union busting
- Drug testing
- Workplace surveillance
- Whistle-blowing
- Occupational safety and health
- Employment law
- Indentured servitude
Ethics of accounting information
- Kickbacks
- Creative accounting
- Earnings management
- Misleading financial analysis
- Insider trading
- Securities fraud
- Bucket shop
- Forex scams
- Executive compensation
- Bribery
- Facilitation payments
Ethics of production
- Harmful, addictive, or defective products
- Environmental ethics
- Pollution
- Carbon emissions trading
- Health
- Mobile phone radiation
- Genetically modified food
- Product testing ethics like animal testing and animal rights
Ethics of sales and marketing
- Pricing: Price discrimination, price fixing, price skimming
- Anticompetitive practices
- Particular marketing strategies: Greenwash, shill, bait and switch, spam (computer), viral marketing, pyramid scheme, and planned obsolescence
- Advertisement contents: Attack ads or promos, sex in advertisements, and subliminal messages
- Marketing in schools
- Grey markets and black markets
Ethics of intellectual property, skills, and knowledge
- Patent infringement, trademark infringement, copyright infringement
- Patent misuse, patent troll, copyright misuse, submarine patent
- Employee raiding
- Biopiracy and bioprospecting
- Industrial espionage
- Business intelligence
International business ethics
- Transfer pricing
- Fair trade pricing
- Cultural imperialism
- Globalization
- Child labor
