Business Question Answer

Question 1

The utilitarian approaches to ethics hold that the moral worth of actions or practices is determined by their consequences.

Answer: True

Question 2

Societal business ethics are divorced from personal ethics.

Answer: False

Question 3

What is considered normal business practice in one country may be considered unethical in other countries.

Answer: True

Question 4

A firm's internal stakeholders include customers, suppliers, and lenders.

Answer: False

Question 5

Friedman's arguments suggest that improving working conditions beyond the level required by the law and necessary to maximize employee productivity will reduce profits and are therefore not appropriate.

Answer: True

Question 6

According to _____, the social responsibility of business is to increase profits, so long as the company stays within the rules of law.

Answer: the Friedman doctrine

Question 7

An American manager in Colombia routinely pays off the local drug lord to guarantee that his plant will not be bombed and that none of his employees will be kidnapped. The manager argues that such payments are ethically defensible because everyone is doing it. The manager's argument exemplifies which of the following ethical approaches?

Answer: Naive immoralist

Question 8

Which of the following, in a business setting, is taken to mean benevolent behavior that is the responsibility of successful enterprises?

Answer: Noblesse oblige

Question 9

According to the Friedman doctrine:

Answer: businesses should not undertake social expenditures beyond those mandated by the law and required for the efficient running of a business.

Question 10

A situation in which none of the available alternatives seems morally acceptable is called:

Answer: an ethical dilemma.

Question 11

Identify the INCORRECT statement about environmental regulations.

Answer: Environmental regulations are similar across developed and developing nations.

Question 12

A multinational company is accused of paying bribes to the government of a host country to obtain permission to build a production factory. The public relations manager of the company defends the company's actions as being ethically sound; he states that in the host country, paying bribes to government officials is the accepted norm and is in keeping with the social practices in the host country. The public relations manager is using which of the following philosophical doctrines to defend the actions of the company?

Answer: Cultural relativism

Question 13

The _____ occurs when a resource is shared by all, but owned by no one, is overused by individuals, resulting in its degradation.

Answer: tragedy of the commons

Question 14

Which of the following was designed to allow GM to operate ethically in South Africa as long as the company did not obey the apartheid laws in its own South African operations?

Answer: Sullivan principles

Question 15

The idea that businesspeople should consider the social consequences of economic actions when making business decisions and that there should be a presumption in favor of decisions that have both good economic and social consequences is known as:

Answer: social responsibility.

Question 16

Rawls' philosophy that inequalities are justified if they benefit the position of the least-advantaged person is known as the:

Answer: difference principle.

Question 17

According to the naive immoralist,:

Answer: if firms in a host nation do not follow ethical norms then the manager of a multinational should also not follow ethical norms there.

Question 18

Expatriate managers may experience more than the usual degree of pressure to violate their personal ethics because of all of the following reasons EXCEPT:

Answer: they are psychologically and geographically closer to the parent company.

Question 19

_____ means standing in the shoes of a stakeholder and asking how a proposed decision might impact that stakeholder.

Answer: Moral imagination

Question 20

According to John Rawls:

Answer: each person should be permitted the maximum amount of basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

Question 21

The utilitarian approach to business ethics suggests that:

Answer: the moral worth of actions or practices is determined by their consequences.

Question 22

External stakeholders:

Answer: typically comprise customers, suppliers, lenders, etc.

Question 23

Which of the following refers to the values and norms that the employees of an organization share?

Answer: Organization culture

Question 24

The Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions excludes:

Answer: facilitating payments made to expedite routine government action.

Question 25

Cultural relativism suggests that:

Answer: a firm should adopt the ethics of the culture in which it is operating.