Describe ethics and the systems of ethical conduct, and illustrate how someone can create a personal code of ethics.

Ethics and business—many people consider these terms to be unrelated. How can you maintain your own personal integrity while still fulfilling your business responsibilities? Examining your own personal ethical code is the first step in successfully navigating this potentially tricky terrain.

Explain how personal ethics might play a role in the workplace and what resources one may use to evaluate a company’s ethical code.

Randy Marks had a recipe for success with his pottery business, but it went against his personal beliefs. What do you do if your own ethics conflict with your business success?

Analyze the ways in which a company’s policies and decisions affect its achievement of corporate social responsibility, and discuss the challenges it may face in balancing the demands of social responsibility with successful business practices.

Although the primary focus in business seems to be on making money, many businesses also make meaningful contributions to the social, environmental, and economic development of the world. CEO Howard Schulz runs Starbucks with a mission to be a company with values and guiding principles that his employees could be proud of. How can such a lofty goal lead to amazing profits and growth?

Summarize how legal compliance affects ethical conduct, and describe some strategies a company can use to recover from ethical lapses.

Of course, DVDs are copyrighted, but with a big trade show coming up, Lana’s project team needed to rip some videos to hard drives for testing. Who would it hurt, after all? Sometimes it seems that if you break ethical standards just a bit, you’ll come out ahead. But does it really pay in business to ignore ethics? Or do good guys come out ahead?

Identify ways in which companies can apply ethical standards to create new business opportunities.

Richard Stephenson saw a need—more compassionate medical care that was still state of the art in terms of its quality. By creating new markets based on ethical needs, many companies like Stephenson’s reap financial rewards, improve employee morale, and make valuable contributions to the world.

List some approaches that a company can use to develop and maintain an ethical environment.

Unbelievable. There they were—the once-frozen test tubes of samples, leaking all over the back delivery dock. Rashid Divecha’s heart sank. He needed to manage his client—and his bosses—in an ethical way. But what did that mean exactly?