Part Two

HOW CAN ETHICS BE APPLIED IN DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS?

Ethics is applied to business in myriad ways and reflects in its diverse activities, either positively or adversely. Part II discusses business ethics in its multifaceted dimensions, both in good companies and in bad ones. Chapter 7 discusses ethical issues and problems that arise in public limited companies as an ‘agency problem’ and how corporate governance with international best practices squarely addresses this. Chapter 8 deals with one of the basic issues that hinders or facilitates long-term shareholder value: investor protection. Nothing reflects a company’s commitment to ethical business than its adherence to corporate citizenship. Corporate social responsibility, analysed in Chapter 9, is an inalienable constituent of such citizenship. Chapter 10 discusses protection of consumers, the be-all and end-all of all corporate activities. Chapter 11 details environmental issues and the role played by various agencies to ensure its protection. Most corporations follow ethical practices if they suit them, and dump them, if they do not. Chapter 12 explains the role of various external agencies in ensuring corporate ethics. Chapter 13, the last in this section, discusses a very important issue relating to the very title of this book: Business Ethics: An Indian Perspective.

Cases attached to all these chapters exemplify how ethical or otherwise are organizations in matters pertaining to their business.