Business Ethics

Based on the general ethical approaches and the rationality aspects discussed in previous chapters, this chapter zooms into the specific ethical challenges of different corporate stakeholders and influencing groups. In particular—and starting with—consumers play a dominant role in business ethics even though they may only indirectly (but ultimately) influence what and how goods and services are produced, offered, and consumed. Producers’ ethics in the long run is derived by the consumers’ demand and need to reflect four different dimensions that are addressed here. The jobholders’ (including employees, but not limited to this group) ethical responsibilities are elaborated with some particular focus examples, e.g., specifics on labor lease pose an ethical risk regarding exploitation of the social security systems. Reflecting the ethical aspects to look after as investor, it will be shown how an increased awareness of “looking beyond economic performance” led to a multitude of initiatives trying to capture the “added value” of a company value beyond the balance sheet. Although this so-called impact investment, which includes ESG aspects of corporations’ performance beyond the pure economic results, experiences increasing attention as consequences of climate change, their most significant shortcomings are illustrated as well.