The Divide Between Ethical Practices And Ethical Policies

Published: 20th June 2011
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There is a divide between ideal ethical practices and ethical policies practiced by businesses today. Philosophers and members from the academia speak of ethics in terms deontological requirements, rule utilitarianism, human flourishing, along with other terms irreconcilable to business people who are practical and avoid abstractions.

In order to bridge the gap between the highly abstract principles in the academia and principles that are practicable in a business environment, the normative theories of business ethics have been developed to serve as an intermediary. The normative theory of economic ethics focuses on the areas of the human life that involve business relationships. These theories are supposed to provide ethical guidance in the commercial environment.

There are three basic theories of normative business ethics let's consider stockholder, stakeholder, and social contract theories. The theories present incompatible and distinct perspectives of the individual’s ethical obligation in business, at one instant one of the theories can be correct.


From the three theories, the stockholder theory could be the oldest. Many argue that the stockholder theory represents the disreputable times of rampant capitalism. On the contrary, the stakeholder’s theory has gained a broad spread acceptance over the years and may even be considered the preferred in the business ethics community. The social contract normative theory is characterized being a major challenge to the position occupied by the stakeholder’s theory.

According to the stockholders theory, an enterprise is an arrangement in which the stockholders give capital on the managers for the sole function of getting profit from their investments. Their investments let them have an ownership status within the company and give them the privilege to produce deciding decisions. The managers behave as representatives of the stockholder and are empowered to manage the investment, but may not act beyond the stockholders interest even if the action may have social benefits.

The stakeholder’s theory could be the second of leading normative theories. The stakeholders theory is ambiguous inside sense that a clear demarcation between an empirical theory of management and also a normative theory of business ethics is just not made. The stakeholder’s theory of economic ethics as an empirical theory of management requires an unbiased attention and consideration to legitimate stakeholder interests with an effective management system to become present in a business.


The stakeholder’s theory like a normative theory disregards negative or positive financial performance due to management in the stakeholder’s interest.
The normative stakeholder theory demands that equal consideration get by the managers in the interest coming from all stakeholders, and in the event of a conflict appealing managers should strive to obtain balance. Within the quest for a balanced system managers likely will be partial and put stockholder interest second fot it of the stakeholder.

The social contract theory, which is the third normative theory of business ethics assert that businesses have a duty towards the society by enhancing the welfare of clients and employees.

The social contract theory is an implicit agreement or contract between members of an society and the business when the business operate in their best interest.
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