Deck 1: Ethics and Business

Question 1

In civil law, there is no room for ambiguity in applying the law because much of the law is established by past precedent.

Answer 1

False
Explanation: In civil law (as opposed to criminal law), where much of the law is established by past precedent, there is always room for ambiguity in applying the law.

Question 2

Societies that value individual freedom will be reluctant to legally require acts of charity, personal integrity, and common decency.

Answer 2

True
Explanation: Societies that value individual freedom will be reluctant to legally require more than just an ethical minimum. Such liberal societies will seek legally to prohibit the most serious ethical harms, but they will not legally require acts of charity, common decency, and personal integrity that may otherwise comprise the social fabric of a developed culture.

Question 3

Which of the following best describes a business stakeholder?

A)Only the minority shareholders in a business entity.
B)Only those who have acquired significant shares in a firm.
C)Anyone who audits a firm.
D)Anyone who affects or is affected by decisions made within a firm.

Answer 3

D
Explanation: In a general sense, a business stakeholder will be anyone who affects or is affected by decisions made within the firm, for better or worse.

Question 4

In a general sense, a business _____ is anyone who affects or is affected by decisions made within the firm, for better or worse.

A)nominee
B)stakeholder
C)stockholder
D)watchdog

Question 5

Ethical decision making in business is limited to major corporate decisions with dramatic social consequences.

Question 6

Which of the following statements is true about ethical decision making in business?

A)Ethical decision making is limited to the type of major corporate decisions with social consequences.
B)At some point, every worker will be faced with an issue that will require ethical decision making.
C)All ethical decisions can be covered by economic, legal, or company rules and regulations.
D)Ethical decision making should not rely on the personal values and principles of the individuals involved.

Question 7

Which of the following statements is true about ethical decision making in business?

A)Ethical decision making is not limited to the type of major corporate decisions with dramatic social consequences.
B)Every employee does not face an issue that requires ethical decision making.
C)All ethical decisions can be covered by economic, legal, or company rules and regulations.
D)Ethical decision making should not rely on the personal values and principles of the individuals involved.

Question 8

Norms appeal to certain values that would be promoted or attained by acting in a certain way.

Question 9

In a general sense, a business stakeholder is one who has made substantial financial investments in the business.

Question 10

The direct costs of unethical business practice are more visible today than they have ever been before.

Question 11

The Grayson-Himes Pay for Performance Act was passed to amend the executive compensation provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Question 12

The well-being promoted by ethical values is not a personal and selfish well-being.

Question 13

Technically speaking, values are not necessarily positive or ethical in nature.

Question 14

A firm's ethical reputation can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace with customers, suppliers, and employees.

Question 15

Ethical theories are patterns of thinking, or methodologies, to help us decide what to do.

Question 16

Ethics refers to how human beings should properly live their lives.

Question 17

In business, every decision can be covered by economic, legal, or company rules and regulations.

Question 18

Which of the following statements is true about ethical decision making in business?

A)Ethical decision making is limited to the type of major corporate decisions with social consequences.
B)Every employee does not face an issue that requires ethical decision making.
C)All ethical decisions can be covered by economic, legal, or company rules and regulations.
D)Ethical decision making should rely on the personal values and principles of the individuals involved.

Question 19

Ethical business leadership is the skill to create circumstances in which bad people are taught to do good.

Question 20

Ethical values are personal codes of ethics that ensure that individually, a person meets his or her standards of well-being.

Question 21

The crux of normative ethics is that these disciplines:

A)presuppose some underlying values.
B)describe what people do.
C)should always involve the study or discipline of ethics.
D)branch away from social ethics to personal ethics.

Question 22

Which of the following is the objective of the Grayson-Himes Pay for Performance Act?

A)To ban future "unreasonable and excessive" compensation at companies receiving federal bailout money.
B)To set up the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in the wake of accounting scandals that rocked the private sector.
C)To outlaw the practice of backdating of stock options awarded to senior management.
D)To set upper limits on executive pay based on average employee salary in all private sector organizations.

Question 23

Individual codes of conduct based on one's value structures regarding how one should live, how one should act, what one should do, what kind of a person should one be etc. is sometimes referred to as ____.

A)morality
B)independence
C)leadership
D)rationality

Question 24

Philosophers often emphasize that ethics is ____, which means that it deals with a person's reasoning about how he or she should act.

A)normative
B)descriptive
C)stipulative
D)persuasive

Question 25

Norms:

A)are the underlying beliefs that cause people to act or to decide one way rather than another.
B)are standards of appropriate and proper behavior.
C)are referred to by the phrase "personal integrity."
D)do not presuppose any underlying values.

Question 26

The aspect of business ethics that examines business institutions from a social rather than an individual perspective is referred to as:

A)decision making for social responsibility.
B)corporate cultural responsibility.
C)institutionalized ethical responsibility.
D)institutional morality.

Question 27

Which of the following is an approach advocated while teaching ethics?

A)Teachers should teach ethical dogma to a passive audience.
B)Teachers should consider acceptance of customary norms as an adequate ethical perspective.
C)Teachers should understand that their role is only to tell the right answers to their students.
D)Teachers should challenge students to think for themselves.

Question 28

Which of the following raises questions about justice, law, civic virtues, and political philosophy?

A)Stipulative ethics
B)Morality
C)Descriptive discipline
D)Social ethics

Question 29

Ethics seeks an account of how and why people should act a certain way, rather than how they do act. This nature of ethics makes it a(n) _____ discipline.

A)descriptive
B)supererogatory
C)normative
D)stipulative

Question 30

Morality is the aspect of ethics that we can refer to by the phrase "_____."

A)personal freedom
B)individual rationality
C)personal integrity
D)persuasive rationality

Question 31

Which of the following is true about values?

A)Values are the highest standards of appropriate and proper behavior.
B)Corporate scandals prove the fact that individuals have personal values, but institutions lack values.
C)Values cannot lead to unethical results.
D)Values are underlying beliefs that cause us to act or to decide in a certain way.

Question 32

Like ethics, social sciences such as psychology and sociology also examine human decision making and actions. However, these fields differ from ethics because they are ____.

A)normative in nature
B)descriptive in nature
C)persuasive in nature
D)stipulative in nature

Question 33

As a _____ discipline, ethics seeks an account of how and why people should act a certain way.

A)descriptive
B)supererogatory
C)normative
D)stipulative

Question 34

Identify the bill that was passed in April 2009 to amend the executive compensation provisions of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards.

A)Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Performance and Results Act
B)Employee Pay Comparability Act
C)Grayson-Himes Pay for Performance Act
D)Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act

Question 35

_____ is that aspect of ethics that is referred to by the phrase "personal integrity."

A)Values
B)Morality
C)Social ethics
D)Norms

Question 36

Which of the following best describes ethics?

A)An academic discipline which originated in the early 1900s.
B)A descriptive approach that provides an account of how and why people do act the way they do.
C)The study of how human beings should properly live their lives.
D)A descriptive approach such as psychology and sociology.

Question 37

Which of the following are underlying beliefs that cause us to act or to decide one way rather than another?

A)Patterns
B)Codes
C)Sets
D)Values

Question 38

_____ establish the guidelines or standards for determining what one should do, how one should act, what type of person one should be.

A)Roles
B)Attitudes
C)Norms
D)Laws

Question 39

Which of the following observations is true of ethics?

A)It is descriptive in nature.
B)It deals with our reasoning about how we should act.
C)It provides an account of how and why people act the way they do.
D)It is equivalent to law-abiding behavior.

Question 40

The _____ discipline provides an account of how and why people do act the way they do.

A)descriptive
B)supererogatory
C)normative
D)stipulative

Question 41

Dramatic examples from history, including Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa, demonstrate that:

A)societies valuing freedom welcome laws that require more than the ethical minimum.
B)ethical responsibilities give rise to more and more regulations.
C)obedience to law is sufficient to fulfill one's ethical duties.
D)one's ethical responsibility may run counter to the law.

Question 42

According to the tradition of theoretical reason, _____ is the great arbiter of truth.

A)religion
B)perception
C)science
D)ethics

Question 43

Ethics requires that the promotion of human welfare be done:

A)based on the personal opinions of the decision maker.
B)based on the level of need of the beneficiaries.
C)understanding the religious beliefs of the beneficiary.
D)in a manner that is acceptable and reasonable from all relevant points of view.

Question 44

_____ reasoning is reasoning about what we should believe.

A)Practical
B)Abstract
C)Theoretical
D)Descriptive

Question 45

_____ reasoning is reasoning about what we should do.

A)Practical
B)Descriptive
C)Theoretical
D)Notional

Question 46

_____ ethics asks us to simply step back from implicit everyday decisions to examine and evaluate them.

Question 47

A(n) _____ is anyone affected, for better or for worse, by the decisions made within a particular firm.

Question 48

Which of the following are beliefs and principles that provide the ultimate guide to a company's decision making?

A)Mission statement
B)Core values
C)Historical milestones
D)Vision statement

Question 49

Which of the following observations is true?

A)Obedience to the law is sufficient to fulfill one's ethical duties.
B)The law is very effective at promoting "goods."
C)The law cannot anticipate every new dilemma that businesses might face.
D)An individual's ethical responsibility can never run counter to the law.

Question 50

In an organizational context, _____ is the skill of creating a circumstance in which good people are able to do good, and bad people are prevented from doing bad.

Question 51

_____ is the aspect of ethics that is referred to by the phrase "personal integrity."

Question 52

Which of the following can be thought of as the answer to the fundamental questions of theoretical reason?

A)The scientific method
B)The practical approach
C)The contingency approach
D)The normative model

Question 53

The failure of personal ethics among companies like Enron and WorldCom led to the creation of the:

A)Brooks Act.
B)Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
C)Clinger-Cohen Act.
D)Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Question 54

Which of the following helps identify potential events that may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk appetite, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of entity objectives?

A)Risk aversion
B)Risk benchmarking
C)Risk assessment
D)Risk minimization

Question 55

Which of the following best describe the norms that guide employees, implicitly more often than not, to behave in ways that the firm values and finds worthy?

A)Organizational culture
B)Government's financial regulations
C)Industrial norms
D)Legal statutes

Question 56

To say that ethics is a _____ discipline is to say that it deals with standards of appropriate and proper behavior.

Question 57

Telling organizations that their ethical responsibilities end with obedience to the law:

A)is just inviting more legal regulation.
B)is enough to maintain an ethical business environment.
C)reduces the frequency of corporate scandals.
D)eliminates ambiguity while making personal ethics-related decisions.

Question 58

Which of the following refers to the pursuit of truth and the highest standard for what we should believe?

A)Theoretical reason
B)Critical reason
C)Philanthropic reason
D)Practical reason

Question 59

Practical reasoning is reasoning about:

A)what we should think.
B)what we should do.
C)what we should believe.
D)what we should share.

Question 60

Theoretical reasoning is reasoning about:

A)what we actually do.
B)what we should do.
C)what we should believe.
D)what we should implement.

Question 61

Define risk assessment.

Question 62

Explain how ethical decisions are required to be made by everybody, and how they have the capacity to influence more than just the decision maker.

Question 63

While using the risk assessment model what might the decision makers include in their assessment before taking action?

Question 64

Define ethics. How is it different from social sciences such as psychology and sociology?

Question 65

Define values and discuss the element of corporate culture in detail.

Question 66

Differentiate the concepts of morality and social ethics.

Question 67

Describe the advantages associated with ethical decision-making.

Question 68

Describe the two elements of ethical values.

Question 69

According to ____, science is the great arbiter of truth.

Question 70

Normative disciplines presuppose some underlying ____.

Question 71

The _____ requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities.

Question 72

Discuss the importance of precedents for most laws concerning business.

Question 73

Discuss the hesitation (that may be justified) associated with teaching ethics. Explain briefly how the authors of this text believe that ethics can be taught constructively in a class.

Question 74

One way to distinguish the various types of values is in terms of the ends they serve. _____ values serve the end of beauty.

Question 75

Discuss the impact of maintaining that holding to the law is sufficient to fulfill one's ethical duties, and what it says about the law itself.

Question 76

Differentiate between practical reason and theoretical reason.

Question 77

Why is 'ethics' considered a normative discipline?

Question 78

Explain how the study of ethics was viewed until recently, and what kind of shift in focus has occurred post the scandals.

Question 79

Explain the difficulties associated with telling businesses that its ethical responsibilities end with obedience to the law.

Question 80

_____ serve the ends of human well-being.