Business administration completo

ETHICA CONTABILE

Evidenza empirica: la funzione contabile è la funzione che comporta il più alto rischio di comportamenti non etici. Come manager, è nostro compito mettere in atto meccanismi di monitoraggio efficienti per scoraggiare e prevenire comportamenti non etici tra i nostri contabili.

ETICA FINANZIARIA

Il dipartimento finanziario è generalmente responsabile della gestione degli attivi, passivi e capitale dell'azienda (obbligazioni, azioni). I comportamenti non etici hanno conseguenze gravi per l'azienda e per gli stakeholder esterni come banche, investitori e la collettività. Questi comportamenti non etici sono fortemente regolamentati dalla legge.

ETICA DEL MARKETING

È la pratica della pubblicità, distribuzione e vendita di prodotti. Il dipartimento marketing interagisce strettamente con i clienti. L'etica richiede che il marketing sia: onesto, trasparente e fornisca le informazioni necessarie. Il marketing è non etico anche se l'azienda nasconde informazioni rilevanti che potrebbero influenzare l'opinione del cliente sul prodotto e/o la sua decisione di acquistare.

product.• Consumers’ health and safety must be guaranteed→Deceptive marketing is unethical managers should fight it today more than in the past because →consumers have access to a huge amount of free and ubiquitous (available everywhere) information it is very easy for the cheating to be discovered and reputation drops

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS

This is a new field for ethics, and it is growing in importance.

An example is privacy

Why?

Because company collects, stores, manages, has access to a huge amount of information about other companies and individuals (suppliers, customers…).

It is a duty of the company to enact all the needed mechanisms to protect their privacy.→This is of the outmost importance when the company is engaged in e-commerce the company needs to guarantee the personal privacy and the privacy of the transaction.

Companies of any size must take care of privacy issues.

Another ethical aspect concerns the copyright protection (software, music,

1. Management should be ethical themselves and spread awareness about the importance of being ethical.
2. Some companies adopt explicit ethics policies and/or ethics codes. Ethics codes are common for large firms, and they are becoming increasingly common also for medium-sized companies.
3. An ethics policy is a document describing the company's policy concerning ethics, focusing on different dimensions of ethics such as accounting, financial, marketing, supply chain, information technology, etc. For example, guidelines for accepting/refusing gifts from suppliers, how to avoid conflicts of interest, and how to behave when they arise.
4. The ethics code is similar to an ethics policy but is more structured in paragraphs and contains the ethical duties and rights of all people who might have relationships with the company.

The reasons to comply with laws and regulations, prevent unethical misconduct, meet certification requirements, keep information secured (privacy), improve skills and knowledge, and spread the relevance of ethical behaviour in business are:

• Comply with laws and regulations
• Prevent unethical misconduct
• Meet certification requirements
• Keep information secured (privacy)
• Improve skills and knowledge
• Spread the relevance of ethical behaviour in business

ETHICS IN OUR GLOBALIZED WORLD

Business today takes places in a globalized world, which raises complex ethical challenges. An example is bribery, which refers to a questionable or unjust or unmotivated payment made to a party that can facilitate or ensure a business transaction. Bribery is more common in certain countries than in others and it is boosted by globalization. For example, a government official or the person in charge of suppliers in a company.

Bribery has both ethical and economic consequences. Because of bribery, there is a loss in efficiency and a distortion in the market. With bribery, it is not the best who wins in the market but the one engaged in bribery!

Book: page 130

3 stories of bribery:

• Petroleo

Brasileiro SA• Alstom• Rolls-Royce

Make sure you understand what happened

Politics acts to avoid and discourage bribery through government intervention and regulations• US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977): it prohibited executives of US based companies orbusiness operating in the US from paying Bribes to government officials.

In the UK a similar act was passed in 2010→Brazil: 2013 ANTIBRIBERY LAW imposed penalties on firms for bribery actions: fine is up 20% ofthe company’s gross income

Example

The British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline; China imposed a payment of 487 million $ becauseof bribery: the company used bribery to convince hospitals and doctors to use Glaxo products.

Bribery in the health sector, besides having serious economic and ethical consequences, might have alsoserious health consequences: instead of being given the best treatment, patients are given the treatmentof the company who uses bribery.

BUSINESS-GOVERNMENT RELATIONSThe

Government is an important stakeholder for any business independently of the size and the sector. Relationships between business and government are complex and dynamic. Managers absolutely need to understand the government's authority to develop the correct business strategy. If possible, business should try to achieve a collaborative partnership with governments, and this is possible in all countries where the government works closely with firms. (European Culture) they share common goals. In other countries, it might happen that government's and business's goals do not match, and they work in opposite directions. The government becomes a negative stakeholder. This happens when government's laws concerning firms are too complex, or too restrictive firms might try to find the way to overcome them. A manager should know the public policy of the country where his/her company operates and of the world in general. Plan of actions undertaken by the government

• Public policy inputs - the external pressures that affect the government's public policy (which interest groups are more powerful)
• Public policy goals - the objectives that public policy as a whole tries to achieve (increase employment, respect national values such as freedom, democracy...)
• Public policy tools - how policy goals are achieved (through incentives, penalties...)
• Public policy effects - the outcome/the impact of the public policy undertaken by the government.

• Economic policies - a type of economic policy is Fiscal Policy that concerns taxes and government spending
• Contractionary Fiscal Policy - raise taxes and/or decrease government spending
• Expansionary Fiscal Policy - lower taxes and/or increase government spending

Fiscal Policy: how the government collects and spends money and how it stimulates the economy

Government spends money on many activities: bridges, schools, hospitals…

Another important kind of economic policy is the Trade Policy: rules, regulations on imports and exports from foreign countries

Government might support Free Trade: unrestricted flow and exchange of goods and services among different countries

Government might prevent free trade putting barriers such as tariffs, duties, bureaucracy

Example: 2018 Trump’s policy to protect US industries

Another type of economic policy is Monetary Policy: in the EU, monetary policy is in the hands of the ECB (European Central Bank)

Policies that affect the value of the nation’s currency

The ECB decides when to increase or decrease the interest rate

When the interest rate is high, it is not convenient to invest for companies because usually when investing a company asks the bank for a loan and if

The interest rate is high, the loan will be very expensive for the company.

A manager invests when the loan is convenient and when he/she has "positive" expectations about the future.

So fiscal, trade and monetary policy have a direct impact on businesses a manager should be constantly informed about them.

Social Assistance Policies policies implemented by the government to enhance the well being of certain individuals. They might affect your customers.

Business - Government Relations

1. Last lecture: government public policies that affect a manager's daily operation.
2. Market Failure: we have a market failure when the market fails to adjust prices in such a way that the true c