City University of Seattle & Banking Academy of Vietnam Program

A Pre-course Paper by

Huyen Nguyen (Hayley)

Student ID: 30110516

Submitted to Dr.Allan Witz

BC 306

City University of Seattle & Banking Academy of Vietnam Program

December 9, 2016

                                                  Introduction

        Profit is one of the most necessary factors for the survival of a business and it is the basis for evaluating the ability to maintain business operations of enterprises. However, if business managers misunderstand the nature of profit and consider it as the only and main goal of business activity, it will cause harm to society and the existence of the business can be threatened.

        The importance of business ethics is a controversial issue with a lot of different views. Business means do the business to pursue profits and economic growth, but it does not mean that all enterprises do everything regardless to achieve the goals. Therefore, the goal of maximizing profits is always in conflict with ethics. “What is business ethics?”, “why we need business ethics?”,” “Should business  people  forsake  ethics  to  achieve  profit?” This paper is an attempt to answer to these questions, with specific attention to business ethics.

                                                         Define Business Ethics

What is business ethics? There are various definition of business ethics .The term “business ethics” represents a combination of two very familiar words: “business” and “ethics”.

“Business is an economic activity, which is related with continuous and regular production and distribution of goods and services for satisfying human wants.” (Akrani, 2011). Ethics is all conceptions of good and bad, conscience, honor, responsibility and evaluation of the rules, adjust the behavior between people and people, personal and social. It helps us to classify, what is right and what is wrong? It tells us to do good things and avoid doing bad things.

In sum, "Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed." (Crane, 2010)

                               The Important of Business Ethics

Business Ethics play an important role in business in both nationally and globally. It is a foundation element for the trust of customers to the business. It helps raise employee loyalty, regulate the behavior of entrepreneurs, enhance the business image and thereby improve the profitability of the business. Therefore, enterprises must build ethical business platform for their business to achieve sustainable success.