ABSTRACT
Most business activity takes place within an extensive system of laws, so that all business decisions – especially those involving communication – must be made from a legal as well as an economic standpoint. Research from Eagle Hill Consulting discovered that employees care about the ethical conduct of their employers. Ethics most often refers to a field of inquiry, or discipline, in which matters of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, are systematically examined. The phrases "corporate social responsibility" and "corporate citizenship" are sometimes used as though they were synonymous with business ethics. Oil companies frequently advertise about how careful they are with the environment, and chemical companies proclaim their "good citizen" role of providing jobs, opportunity and the chance to "do good things." For the individual businessperson, business ethics concerns the values by which self-interest and other motives are balanced with concern for fairness and the common good, both inside and outside of a company.
