Business Ethics

Course Content from McGraw Hill
Course Number: BUS106 Download Course Syllabus
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This course provides an introduction to business ethics. Part philosophy and part business, the course covers a wide array of ethical issues arising in contemporary business life. Major theoretical perspectives and concepts are presented, including ethical relativism, utilitarianism, and deontology. The lessons explore employee issues and responsibilities, leadership and decision making, morality, diversity, discrimination, and ethics in marketing and advertising. Corporate social responsibility is also examined, as are the topics of environmental responsibilities, global ethics, and regulation concerns in an era of increasing globalization.

This Course Includes:

  • Proctored Exams
  • 48 hours grading turn-around
  • Live technical and student support
  • Free transcription to your destination school
  • 150+ partner college and universities with direct articulation

  • Self Paced
  • Business
  • Content by McGraw Hill
Online Course
Business Ethics   +$79.00
Tutoring (included)
Proctoring
Proctoring   +$0.00
Etextbook
BUS106 eTextbook (a $69.00 value)   +$0.00
Credits 3
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Course Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Relate the market system to the need for ethics in business and distinguish it from the law and concepts of virtue and morality.
  • Explore ethics in the context of relativism, psychological egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics.
  • Examine the ideas of character ethic, female ethic, human rights, and ethical action.
  • Illustrate the factors influencing employee issues including the right to work, employment at will, due process and employee participation, health and safety standards, family responsibilities, the right to privacy, and substance abuse testing.
  • Examine the professional ethics and responsibilities of intermediaries, managerial responsibility and loyalty, and employee responsibilities to the community.
  • Illustrate how the traits of ethical leaders and the influence of the group affect moral responsibility.
  • Compare differentiation and discrimination, and examine issues involving diversity and discrimination including the work environment of women, preferential policies, and diversity policies.
  • Relate risk analysis in health and safety, responsibilities of the producer, products liability and accountability, and fair pricing to ethics in marketing.
  • Explore the ethical considerations that govern sales, advertising, and product placement in the context of regulation of sales and advertising, and target marketing.
  • Analyze international economic integration, labor in the global economy, and the regulation of global economic activities by international institutions.
  • Analyze methods of ensuring morality in business including Kohlberg's method of assessing moral decision-making processes and James Weber's modification, ethical corporate structures, and federal sentencing guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
  • Analyze the classical model and its limitations, and evaluate modern theories of corporate social responsibility including the moral minimum framework and the stakeholder theory.
  • Define environmental pragmatism and relate it to environmental regulation and sustainable economics.
  • Relate eastern business philosophies, and Islamic and Jewish traditions to the intricacies of conducting ethical overseas business ventures.

Topics

Topic

Subtopics

Objectives

1

Ethics and Business
  • Defining Business Ethics
  • Law and Ethics
  • Interpreting Ethics
  • Illustrate the need and nature of business ethics.
  • Distinguish ethics and ethos from the law.
  • Analyze the concepts of morality, virtue, social ethics, and managerial ethics.
  • Relate the concepts of the market system, contemporary capitalism, and socialist democracies to managing in market economies.

2

Ethical Decision Making: Personal and Professional Contexts
  • Agent-Principal and the Gatekeeper Function
  • Managerial Responsibility and Loyalty
  • Responsibilities to the Community
  • Moral Rights and Legal Doctrine
  • Health and Safety
  • Privacy and Substance Abuse
  • Examine the professional ethics and responsibilities of employees and agents in their role as intermediaries.
  • Explore loyalty and the responsibility of managers to acquire and act on negative information.
  • Analyze employee responsibilities to the community in the context of honesty, whistleblowing, and insider trading.
  • Examine the right to work and relate it to the doctrine of employment at will.
  • Analyze the principle of due process and employee participation.
  • Assess the ethical considerations governing health and safety standards in the workplace.
  • Review the concepts of personal zone, control of personal information, and substance abuse testing.

3

Philosophical Ethics and Business
  • Reasoning in Ethics
  • Utilitarian Ethics
  • Deontological Ethics
  • Virtue Ethics
  • Character Ethic
  • Female Ethic
  • Ethics and Human Rights
  • Ethical Action
  • Analyze the impact of relativism and psychological egoism on ethics.
  • Explain how utilitarian ethics has been used to shape business policy and examine its challenges.
  • Examine the principle of categorical imperative.
  • Analyze virtue ethics and its role in business practice.
  • Identify the principles that govern and shape character.
  • Examine the proposition of a feminine ethic and the caring perspective.
  • Relate human rights to economic rights of production and consumption.
  • Examine the concept of moral excellence and implement a checklist in decision making.

4

The Corporate Culture—Impact and Implications
  • Kohlberg and Moral Reasoning
  • Ethical Corporate Structures
  • Federal Guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
  • Compare Kohlberg's method of assessing managers' moral decision-making processes and James Weber's modification.
  • Evaluate the benefits and limitations of corporate credos, ethics programs, and codes of ethics in promoting proactive ethical behavior.
  • Analyze the impact of federal sentencing guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on proactive ethics in businesses.

5

Corporate Social Responsibility
  • The Classical Model
  • The Moral Minimum
  • The Stakeholder Theory
  • Discrimination Versus Differentiation
  • Woman in the Workforce
  • Preferential Policies
  • Promoting Diversity
  • Review the classical model of corporate social responsibility.
  • Evaluate the moral minimum framework.
  • Demonstrate the limitations of the utilitarian and private property defenses of the classical model.
  • Analyze the theory that managerial decisions should balance the interests of all stakeholders.
  • Analyze differentiation and discrimination and relate it to equal opportunity and affirmative action.
  • Evaluate how overt discrimination, sexual harassment, and the glass ceiling create a negative work environment for women.
  • Review the impact of preferential treatment policies as a means of securing equality in the workplace.
  • Assess the effectiveness of implementing diversity policies.

6

Midterm Exam

    7

    Ethical Decision Making: Employer Responsibilities and Employee Rights
    • Ethical Leadership
    • Ethical Decision Making
    • Impact of Groupthink
    • Examine the traits of ethical leaders.
    • Assess the impact of groupthink in the abdication of individual ethical responsibility.
    • Examine the psychology of ethical decision making

    8

    Ethical Decision Making: Technology and Privacy in the Workplace
    • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Eastern Business Philosophy
    • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Jewish and Islamic Business Ethics
    • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Overseas Business Ventures
    • Examine the business philosophy of kyosei, Confucius, and Tetsuro Watsuji.
    • Review economic and commercial activities to Islamic teachings and Jewish traditions.
    • Examine the intricacies of conducting ethical overseas business ventures and relate it to the FCPA.

    9

    Ethics and Marketing
    • Risk Analysis in Health and Safety
    • Responsibilities of the Producer
    • Products Liability
    • Fair Pricing
    • Sales, Advertising, and Product Placement
    • Regulating Sales and Advertising
    • Target Marketing
    • Review how risk analysts estimate the costs of saving lives in the context of health and safety.
    • Examine the ethical concerns associated with market exchanges.
    • Analyze products liability and relate it to the assigning of accountability.
    • Illustrate how price gouging, monopolistic pricing, price-fixing, and predatory pricing affect fair market pricing.
    • Explore the ethical considerations that govern the promotion and placement of products.
    • Examine the role of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in regulating marketing practices and relate it to consumer autonomy.
    • Analyze the ethics of the strategies used in target marketing.

    10

    Business and Environmental Sustainability
    • Environmental Pragmatism
    • Environmental Regulation
    • Sustainable Economics
    • Explore the range of environmental responsibilities applicable to businesses and relate it to environmental pragmatism.
    • Examine environmental regulation policies in the context of a market system.
    • Analyze the proposition that the economy is a subsystem within the Earth's biosphere and requires sustainable development.

    11

    Trust in Corporate Governance, Accounting, and Finance
    • International Economic Integration
    • Labor
    • Analyze the purpose of international economic integration and relate it to living standards.
    • Examine the working conditions of labor in emerging industry to international institutions and the policies regulating global economic activities.

    12

    Final Exam

      There are no prerequisites to take Business Ethics.

      The required eTextbook for this course is included with your course purchase at no additional cost. More information on StraighterLine eTextbooks

      Prefer the hard copy? Simply purchase from your favorite textbook retailer; you will still get the eTextbook for free.

      Hartman, Laura P., Joseph R. DesJardins, and Chris MacDonald. Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2024. ISBN: 9781265322724.

      StraighterLine provides a percentage score and letter grade for each course. A passing percentage is 70% or higher.
      If you have chosen a Partner College to award credit for this course, your final grade will be based upon that college's grading scale. Only passing scores will be considered by Partner Colleges for an award of credit. There are a total of 1000 points in the course:

      Topic

      Assessment

      Points

      1

      Reflective Response: Advantages of Ethical Decision Making

      12

      2

      Reflective Response: Complexities of Ethical Decision Making

      12

      3

      Reflective Response: Utilitarianism

      12

      3

      Graded Exam 1

      125

      4

      Reflective Response: Ethical Leadership

      12

      5

      Reflective Response: Three Types of Responsibility

      12

      5

      Graded Exam 2

      125
       6

      Midterm Exam

      160

      7

      Reflective Response: Diversity in the Workplace

      12

      8

      Reflective Response: The Age of Technology

      12

      8

      Graded Exam 3

      125

      9

      Reflective Response: Ethical Issues in Marketing

      12

      10

      Reflective Response: Sustainable Business Strategies

      12

      11

      Reflective Response: Trust in Corporate Governance, Accounting, and Finance

      12

      11

      Graded Exam 4

      125

      12

      Final Exam

      220

      Total

      		  

      1000

      Final Proctored Exam

      The final exam is developed to assess the knowledge you learned taking this course. All students are required to take an online proctored final exam in order complete the course and be eligible for transfer credit.

      Learn more about Proctored Exams

      10/5/14 by ciamos

      This course helped me realize what I knew and didn't know about Business Ethics.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      10/5/14 by ciamos

      This course helped me realize what I knew and didn't know about Business Ethics.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      9/22/14 by crisann.mccloy

      If possible, take the DSST instead and skip this.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      9/22/14 by crisann.mccloy

      If possible, take the DSST instead and skip this.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      8/2/14 by jimmytp

      The Business Ethics course was pretty straightforward and to the point. It definitely required the textbook and reading on your own. After the first exam or two, you get a good feel for how the questions are being pulled from the text and I believe most peoples grades will slowly increase throughout the course.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      8/2/14 by smf6824

      Helped me fulfill my ethics requirement. Good course.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      8/2/14 by jimmytp

      The Business Ethics course was pretty straightforward and to the point. It definitely required the textbook and reading on your own. After the first exam or two, you get a good feel for how the questions are being pulled from the text and I believe most peoples grades will slowly increase throughout the course.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      8/2/14 by smf6824

      Helped me fulfill my ethics requirement. Good course.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/22/14 by jjsprehn

      This was a fun and straightforward course that taught me a lot about business ethics. Each of the 40 question exams took me about 45 minutes each, including review time for my answers, and the final took me just under an hour (60 questions). The homework assignments and readings were all well geared towards the exams, and (even more importantly) they were actually interesting and taught me something. Great experience all together.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/22/14 by jjsprehn

      This was a fun and straightforward course that taught me a lot about business ethics. Each of the 40 question exams took me about 45 minutes each, including review time for my answers, and the final took me just under an hour (60 questions). The homework assignments and readings were all well geared towards the exams, and (even more importantly) they were actually interesting and taught me something. Great experience all together.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/15/14 by jbrewer7867

      Exam questions were similar to module questions, which was helpful. However, overall question wording was sometimes difficult. The course is a good overview of business ethics practices.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/15/14 by jbrewer7867

      Exam questions were similar to module questions, which was helpful. However, overall question wording was sometimes difficult. The course is a good overview of business ethics practices.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/14/14 by danieled

      everything okay

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/14/14 by danieled

      everything okay

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/5/14 by wandering_tiger21

      This course was a great way to quickly and inexpensively meet my ethics requirement.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/5/14 by wandering_tiger21

      This course was a great way to quickly and inexpensively meet my ethics requirement.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      7/20/13 by rebekah.mclain1

      Good Course. To pass you have to get the book and know the material in it. Not sufficient to just read the lessons online.

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      1/31/13 by martin0616

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      11/25/12 by bug0430

      Content Rating
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      11/25/12 by bug0430

      Content Rating
      Overall Rating
      9/6/11 by chrislane125

       

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      12/27/09 by chrislane125

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      Course Objectives

      After completing this course, you will be able to:

      • Relate the market system to the need for ethics in business and distinguish it from the law and concepts of virtue and morality.
      • Explore ethics in the context of relativism, psychological egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics.
      • Examine the ideas of character ethic, female ethic, human rights, and ethical action.
      • Illustrate the factors influencing employee issues including the right to work, employment at will, due process and employee participation, health and safety standards, family responsibilities, the right to privacy, and substance abuse testing.
      • Examine the professional ethics and responsibilities of intermediaries, managerial responsibility and loyalty, and employee responsibilities to the community.
      • Illustrate how the traits of ethical leaders and the influence of the group affect moral responsibility.
      • Compare differentiation and discrimination, and examine issues involving diversity and discrimination including the work environment of women, preferential policies, and diversity policies.
      • Relate risk analysis in health and safety, responsibilities of the producer, products liability and accountability, and fair pricing to ethics in marketing.
      • Explore the ethical considerations that govern sales, advertising, and product placement in the context of regulation of sales and advertising, and target marketing.
      • Analyze international economic integration, labor in the global economy, and the regulation of global economic activities by international institutions.
      • Analyze methods of ensuring morality in business including Kohlberg's method of assessing moral decision-making processes and James Weber's modification, ethical corporate structures, and federal sentencing guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
      • Analyze the classical model and its limitations, and evaluate modern theories of corporate social responsibility including the moral minimum framework and the stakeholder theory.
      • Define environmental pragmatism and relate it to environmental regulation and sustainable economics.
      • Relate eastern business philosophies, and Islamic and Jewish traditions to the intricacies of conducting ethical overseas business ventures.

      Topics

      Topic

      Subtopics

      Objectives

      1

      Ethics and Business
      • Defining Business Ethics
      • Law and Ethics
      • Interpreting Ethics
      • Illustrate the need and nature of business ethics.
      • Distinguish ethics and ethos from the law.
      • Analyze the concepts of morality, virtue, social ethics, and managerial ethics.
      • Relate the concepts of the market system, contemporary capitalism, and socialist democracies to managing in market economies.

      2

      Ethical Decision Making: Personal and Professional Contexts
      • Agent-Principal and the Gatekeeper Function
      • Managerial Responsibility and Loyalty
      • Responsibilities to the Community
      • Moral Rights and Legal Doctrine
      • Health and Safety
      • Privacy and Substance Abuse
      • Examine the professional ethics and responsibilities of employees and agents in their role as intermediaries.
      • Explore loyalty and the responsibility of managers to acquire and act on negative information.
      • Analyze employee responsibilities to the community in the context of honesty, whistleblowing, and insider trading.
      • Examine the right to work and relate it to the doctrine of employment at will.
      • Analyze the principle of due process and employee participation.
      • Assess the ethical considerations governing health and safety standards in the workplace.
      • Review the concepts of personal zone, control of personal information, and substance abuse testing.

      3

      Philosophical Ethics and Business
      • Reasoning in Ethics
      • Utilitarian Ethics
      • Deontological Ethics
      • Virtue Ethics
      • Character Ethic
      • Female Ethic
      • Ethics and Human Rights
      • Ethical Action
      • Analyze the impact of relativism and psychological egoism on ethics.
      • Explain how utilitarian ethics has been used to shape business policy and examine its challenges.
      • Examine the principle of categorical imperative.
      • Analyze virtue ethics and its role in business practice.
      • Identify the principles that govern and shape character.
      • Examine the proposition of a feminine ethic and the caring perspective.
      • Relate human rights to economic rights of production and consumption.
      • Examine the concept of moral excellence and implement a checklist in decision making.

      4

      The Corporate Culture—Impact and Implications
      • Kohlberg and Moral Reasoning
      • Ethical Corporate Structures
      • Federal Guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
      • Compare Kohlberg's method of assessing managers' moral decision-making processes and James Weber's modification.
      • Evaluate the benefits and limitations of corporate credos, ethics programs, and codes of ethics in promoting proactive ethical behavior.
      • Analyze the impact of federal sentencing guidelines and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on proactive ethics in businesses.

      5

      Corporate Social Responsibility
      • The Classical Model
      • The Moral Minimum
      • The Stakeholder Theory
      • Discrimination Versus Differentiation
      • Woman in the Workforce
      • Preferential Policies
      • Promoting Diversity
      • Review the classical model of corporate social responsibility.
      • Evaluate the moral minimum framework.
      • Demonstrate the limitations of the utilitarian and private property defenses of the classical model.
      • Analyze the theory that managerial decisions should balance the interests of all stakeholders.
      • Analyze differentiation and discrimination and relate it to equal opportunity and affirmative action.
      • Evaluate how overt discrimination, sexual harassment, and the glass ceiling create a negative work environment for women.
      • Review the impact of preferential treatment policies as a means of securing equality in the workplace.
      • Assess the effectiveness of implementing diversity policies.

      6

      Midterm Exam

        7

        Ethical Decision Making: Employer Responsibilities and Employee Rights
        • Ethical Leadership
        • Ethical Decision Making
        • Impact of Groupthink
        • Examine the traits of ethical leaders.
        • Assess the impact of groupthink in the abdication of individual ethical responsibility.
        • Examine the psychology of ethical decision making

        8

        Ethical Decision Making: Technology and Privacy in the Workplace
        • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Eastern Business Philosophy
        • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Jewish and Islamic Business Ethics
        • Cross-Cultural Ethical Values: Overseas Business Ventures
        • Examine the business philosophy of kyosei, Confucius, and Tetsuro Watsuji.
        • Review economic and commercial activities to Islamic teachings and Jewish traditions.
        • Examine the intricacies of conducting ethical overseas business ventures and relate it to the FCPA.

        9

        Ethics and Marketing
        • Risk Analysis in Health and Safety
        • Responsibilities of the Producer
        • Products Liability
        • Fair Pricing
        • Sales, Advertising, and Product Placement
        • Regulating Sales and Advertising
        • Target Marketing
        • Review how risk analysts estimate the costs of saving lives in the context of health and safety.
        • Examine the ethical concerns associated with market exchanges.
        • Analyze products liability and relate it to the assigning of accountability.
        • Illustrate how price gouging, monopolistic pricing, price-fixing, and predatory pricing affect fair market pricing.
        • Explore the ethical considerations that govern the promotion and placement of products.
        • Examine the role of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in regulating marketing practices and relate it to consumer autonomy.
        • Analyze the ethics of the strategies used in target marketing.

        10

        Business and Environmental Sustainability
        • Environmental Pragmatism
        • Environmental Regulation
        • Sustainable Economics
        • Explore the range of environmental responsibilities applicable to businesses and relate it to environmental pragmatism.
        • Examine environmental regulation policies in the context of a market system.
        • Analyze the proposition that the economy is a subsystem within the Earth's biosphere and requires sustainable development.

        11

        Trust in Corporate Governance, Accounting, and Finance
        • International Economic Integration
        • Labor
        • Analyze the purpose of international economic integration and relate it to living standards.
        • Examine the working conditions of labor in emerging industry to international institutions and the policies regulating global economic activities.

        12

        Final Exam

          There are no prerequisites to take Business Ethics.

          The required eTextbook for this course is included with your course purchase at no additional cost. More information on StraighterLine eTextbooks

          Prefer the hard copy? Simply purchase from your favorite textbook retailer; you will still get the eTextbook for free.

          Hartman, Laura P., Joseph R. DesJardins, and Chris MacDonald. Business Ethics: Decision-Making for Personal Integrity & Social Responsibility, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2024. ISBN: 9781265322724.

          StraighterLine provides a percentage score and letter grade for each course. A passing percentage is 70% or higher.
          If you have chosen a Partner College to award credit for this course, your final grade will be based upon that college's grading scale. Only passing scores will be considered by Partner Colleges for an award of credit. There are a total of 1000 points in the course:

          Topic

          Assessment

          Points

          1

          Reflective Response: Advantages of Ethical Decision Making

          12

          2

          Reflective Response: Complexities of Ethical Decision Making

          12

          3

          Reflective Response: Utilitarianism

          12

          3

          Graded Exam 1

          125

          4

          Reflective Response: Ethical Leadership

          12

          5

          Reflective Response: Three Types of Responsibility

          12

          5

          Graded Exam 2

          125
           6

          Midterm Exam

          160

          7

          Reflective Response: Diversity in the Workplace

          12

          8

          Reflective Response: The Age of Technology

          12

          8

          Graded Exam 3

          125

          9

          Reflective Response: Ethical Issues in Marketing

          12

          10

          Reflective Response: Sustainable Business Strategies

          12

          11

          Reflective Response: Trust in Corporate Governance, Accounting, and Finance

          12

          11

          Graded Exam 4

          125

          12

          Final Exam

          220

          Total

          		  

          1000

          Final Proctored Exam

          The final exam is developed to assess the knowledge you learned taking this course. All students are required to take an online proctored final exam in order complete the course and be eligible for transfer credit.

          Learn more about Proctored Exams

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