The majority of North American corporations awakened to the need for their own ethical guidelines during the late 1970s and early 1980s, even though modern corporations are subject to a surprising multiplicity of external codes of ethics or conduct. This paper provides an understanding of both internal and external codes through a discussion of the factors behind the development of the codes, an analysis of internal codes and an identification of problems with them.

Partly as a result of much recent evidence of business and government crime, a large proportion of major corporations have adopted codes of ethics; government service is also making more use of them. The electrical manufacturing anti-trust conspiracy and 1973–1976 investigation of foreign and domestic bribery were immediate prods. There are also government codes of which the ASPA code is most widely distributed. Corporate codes discuss relations to employees, interemployee relationships, whistle blowing, effect on environment, commercial bribery, insider information, other (...) conflicts of interest, anti-trust, accounting, consumer relations, and political activities. A discussion of use of codes shows partly favorable results. A number of corporation decisions have not yet become a subject of code provisions. Codes will be more useful if the reasons behind each order are stated and team work is encouraged. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine a number of current moral philosophies and their effects on retailers in work and nonwork settings. ;The study focused on whether or not retailers in general have more than one philosophy type. In addition, the research tested the reactions of different philosophy types when perceived risk was introduced. ;A set of hypotheses were developed which examined whether perceived risk would affect the philosophy type and the individual's intention to behave. In addition, the (...) research tested certain, philosophy type's individually and organizationally perceived ethicalness. The hypotheses were tested using data gathered by questionnaire within one corporation. Analysis of variance techniques were the most common form of analysis for the thirty six hypotheses. ;The results of the first set of hypotheses show that retailers classified as act deontologists and egoists are more likely to change their philosophy type between work and nonwork situations than any other. The second set of hypotheses tested whether or not specific philosophy types perceived themselves as ethical. The findings showed that within work situations all philosophy types perceived their decisions as ethical, with rule deontologists as the most ethical and egoists the least. Within nonwork situations, act utilitarians and egoists perceived the decisions they made as unethical. ;The third set of hypotheses measured the likelihood of each philosophy type changing their decision when some form of risk was included. The results showed that egoists are more likely, with rule deontologists the least likely, to alter their decision based on perceived risk. The final set of hypotheses tested the organizational ethicalness of each philosophy type. The results showed that rule deontologists are more ethical, as defined by a scale to measure ethicalness from the organization's perspective, than any other philosophy type. (shrink)

This paper argues that product and advertisement are neither completely dependent nor completely independent. The advertisement of a bad product cannot be good. The advertisement of a good product is not necessarily good. In the case where consumer sovereignty cannot be assumed, the goodness of an advertisement depends solely on the goodness of the product. In the case where consumer sovereignty can be assumed, the goodness of an advertisement depends first on whether the product is good, and if so, whether (...) the advertisement preserves individual autonomy. (shrink)