Cambridge O Level Business Studies · Syllabus 7115 · External Influences on Business Activity
Business Ethics
What is Business Ethics?
The moral principles that guide a business's decisions, covering what it considers right and wrong to do rather than only what is legal or profitable. Ethical issues in business include working conditions, child labour, discrimination, the prices paid to suppliers, truthful marketing, customer privacy and animal welfare. Ethical behaviour may raise short-term costs while strengthening reputation, customer loyalty, employee retention, supplier reliability and investor confidence, so it is neither automatically profitable nor automatically unprofitable.
This definition is part of the External Influences on Business Activity chapter in Cambridge O Level Business Studies.