Business in Society
Business Administration 303
Section: d100
Term: 1998 Summer
Instructor: Dr. Mark Wexler
Office:
Phone:
e-mail:
WMX 4327
291-4520
wexler@sfu.ca
Discussion Topics: Course Description:
This course reviews and synthesizes the literature on moral issues in the field of business
and society. The course is divided into four parts: a) Moral points of view in business
practice; b) Corporations in the late stages of capitalism; c) Morality in the workplace; and
d) Exter-nalities: the environment and consumers.
Each part explores the legal, ethical and moral issues pertaining to business and their
management. To accomplish their work, students will focus on various models: cognitive
models used under uncertainty, organizational field models, models of corporate social
responsibility, stakeholder models and ethical scenario models, to provide them with a
vocabulary for describing the way in which individuals, departments and organizations put
together a viable ethics portfolio.
Course Coverage:
Week 1 The Nature of Morality
Reading:Solomon & Hanson; \204It\202s good business\211
Davis; \204Exploring wrong doing\211
Case:The A7D Affair
Week 2 Normative Theories of Ethics
Reading: Rachels; \204What would a satisfactory moral theory be like\211
Desjardnis; \204Virtues and Business Ethics\211
Case:Blood for Sale
Business in Society
Week 3 Justice and Economic Distribution
Reading: Singer; \204Rich and Poor\211
Haslett; \204Is Inheritance Justified\211
Case:Whatever Happened to the Steel Industry?
Week 4 The Nature of Capitalism
Reading: Schumacher; \204Buddhist economics\211
Newton; \204Hostile takeover\211
Case:A New Work Ethic
Week 5 Corporations
Readings: Arrow; \204Social responsibility and economic efficiency\211
DeGeorge; \204Ethical dilemmas for multinational enterprise: philosophical overview\211
Case:Layoffs at Levi
Week 6 Take home midterm exam (40%)
Case:Layoffs at Levi (10%)
Week 7 Review of key concepts
Week 8 The workplace:
Basic issues
Reading: Werhane; \204Employee and employer rights in an institutional context\211
Gibson; \204The public worker\202s right to strike\211
Case:Burger Beefs
Week 9 The workplace:
Today\202s Challenge
Readings: Desjardnis & Duska; \204Drug testing in employment\211
Lippke; \204Work, privacy and autonomy\211
Case:Testing for Honesty
Business in Society
Week 10 Moral choices facing employees
Readings:Moore; \204What is really unethical about insider trading\211
James; \204In defense of whistle blowing\211
Case:The Tavoulares Affair:
Nepotism at Mobil
Week 11 Job Discrimination
Readings: Wasserstrom; \204A defense of programs of preferential treatment\211
Dodds, et al.; \204Sexual harassment\211
Case:Consenting to Sexual Harassment
Week 12 The Environment
Readings: Rescher; \204The Environmental crisis and the quality of life\211
Singer; \204The place of nonhumans in environmental issues\211
Case:BKK:
The Story of a Waste Site
Week 13 Review of Key Concepts
Case:BKK:
The Story of a Waste Site (10%)
Grading: 10% Case One
10% Case Two
40% Midterm Exam
40% Final Exam
100%
Required Texts: Shaw & Barry; Moral Issues in Business, latest ed., Wadsworth.
Recommended Texts:
Materials/Supplies:
Prerequisite/Corequisite: 60 credit hours.
Notes:
This outline is derived from a course outline repository database that was maintained by SFU
Business in Society
Student Services and the University’s IT Services Department. The database was retired in
2014 and the data migrated to SFU Archives in 2015.