Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Student name:__________
TRUE/FALSE - Write 'T' if the statement is true and 'F' if the statement is false.
1) In a general sense, a business stakeholder is one who has made substantial financial
investments in the business.
⊚ true
⊚ false
2) A firm’s ethical reputation can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace with
customers, suppliers, and employees.
⊚ true
⊚ false
3) Ethics refers to how human beings should properly live their lives.
⊚ true
⊚ false
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4) Norms appeal to certain values that would be promoted or attained by acting in a certain
way.
⊚ true
⊚ false
5) Values are the only guidance individuals need to act in ways that are positive or ethical.
⊚ true
⊚ false
6) Ethical values are personal codes of ethics that ensure that a person meets his or her
individual standards of well-being.
⊚ true
⊚ false
7) The well-being promoted by ethical values is not a personal and selfish well-being.
⊚ true
⊚ false
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8) Societies that value individual freedom legally stipulate codes of personal integrity and
common decency to safeguard this freedom.
⊚ true
⊚ false
9) In civil law, there is no room for ambiguity in applying the law because much of the law
is established by past precedent.
⊚ true
⊚ false
10) Ethical theories are patterns of thinking, or methodologies, to help us decide what to do.
⊚ true
⊚ false
MULTIPLE CHOICE - Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or
answers the question.
11) Which of the following represents the role of philosophical ethics in the field of business
ethics?
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12) Identify a true statement about the field of business ethics.
14) ________ is a theory of human motivation that claims that all human actions are selfish
and motivated by self-interest.
A) Theoretical reasoning
B) The stakeholder theory
C) Psychological egoism
D) The separation thesis
15) The ________ asserts that ordinary ethical standards should be kept separate from, and
not be used to judge, business decisions because business has its own standards of good and bad.
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A) scientific method
B) separation thesis
C) concept of theoretical reasoning
D) social ethics model
16) In a general sense, anyone who affects or is affected by decisions made within a firm can
be called a business ________.
A) nominee
B) stakeholder
C) analyst
D) insider
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19) Which of the following is an approach advocated while teaching ethics?
20) Philosophers often state that ethics is ________, which means that it focuses on people’s
reasoning about how they should act.
A) normative
B) derivative
C) circumstantial
D) clinical
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.
22) Social sciences such as psychology and sociology are different from ethics owing to the
fact that they are ________.
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A) normative in nature
B) descriptive in nature
C) conjectural in nature
D) clinical in nature
23) ________ seeks an account of the how and why people should act a certain way, rather
than how they do act.
A) Sociology
B) Psychology
C) Ethics
D) Anthropology
24) Which of the following is a factor that distinguishes social sciences, such as psychology
and sociology, from ethics?
A) Unlike ethics, these disciplines inquire why people act the way they do.
B) Unlike ethics, these disciplines are normative rather than descriptive.
C) Unlike ethics, these disciplines provide an account of how people should act.
D) Unlike ethics, these disciplines give directives about how people should act.
25) The ________ discipline provides an account of how and why people do act the way they
do.
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A) descriptive
B) supererogatory
C) normative
D) stipulative
26) Individual codes of conduct based on one’s value structures regarding how one should
live, how one should act, what one should do, and what kind of a person should one be is
sometimes referred to as ________.
A) morality
B) independence
C) leadership
D) rationality
27) 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
28) Ethics refers to the applications of ________ on which people’s decisions are based.
A) values
B) morals
C) etiquettes
D) norms
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29) Identify the area of ethics that raises questions about justice, law, civic virtues, and
political philosophy.
A) stipulative ethics
B) existential ethics
C) virtue ethics
D) social ethics
30) The aspect of business ethics that examines business institutions from a social rather than
an individual perspective is referred to as
31) ________ 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
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A) They are underlying beliefs that cause people to choose one way or another.
B) They are standards of appropriate and proper behavior.
C) They provide benchmarks of desirable societal conditions.
D) They consist of guidelines for bringing about positive behavioral change.
34) Which of the following refers to an underlying belief that causes people to choose
between plausible courses of action?
A) norms
B) paradigms
C) protocols
D) values
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36) ________ are beliefs and principles that provide the ultimate guide to a company’s
decision making.
A) Mission statements
B) Core values
C) Historical milestones
D) Vision statements
37) Which of the following is a way of saying that a corporation has a set of identifiable
values that establish the expectations for what is normal within the firm?
A) organizational culture
B) organizational policy
C) organizational code
D) organizational structure
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A) societies valuing freedom welcome laws that require more than the ethical minimum.
B) just societies can only be achieved through strict enforcement of ethical codes.
C) obedience to the law almost always makes people apathetic towards their ethical
duties.
D) one’s ethical responsibility may run counter to the law.
40) Telling organizations that their ethical responsibilities end with obedience to the law
41) 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.
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43) Which of the following is a true statement about the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA)?
44) A process to 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 is called ________.
A) risk assessment
B) practical reasoning
C) theoretical reasoning
D) risk pooling
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A) practical
B) objective
C) theoretical
D) predictive
A) Practical
B) Abstract
C) Theoretical
D) Descriptive
49) Which of the following is the pursuit of the highest standard for what we should believe?
A) theoretical reason
B) notional reason
C) emotional reason
D) practical reason
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50) Which of the following is the great arbiter of truth according to the tradition of theoretical
reason?
A) religion
B) customs
C) science
D) norms
51) Which of the following can be thought of as the answer to the fundamental questions of
theoretical reason?
FILL IN THE BLANK. Write the word or phrase that best completes each statement or
answers the question.
52) A ________ is anyone affected, for better or for worse, by the decisions made within a
particular firm.
53) ________ is a theory of human motivation that claims that all human actions are selfish
and motivated by self-interest.
54) The ________ asserts that ordinary ethical standards should be kept separate from, and
not be used to judge, business decisions because business has its own standards of good and bad.
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55) A process to 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 is called ________.
56) As a discipline, ________ deals with norms and standards of appropriate and proper
(normal) behavior.
57) ________ is the aspect of ethics that is referred to by the phrase “personal integrity.”
59) Acts and decisions that seek to promote human welfare are based on ________.
60) The aspect of business integrity that focuses on examining business institutions from a
collective rather than from an individual perspective falls under the area of ________.
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ESSAY. Write your answer in the space provided or on a separate sheet of paper.
62) Explain how the study of ethics was viewed until recently, and what kind of shift in focus
has occurred post the scandals.
64) 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.
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65) Define ethics. How is it different from social sciences such as psychology and sociology?
68) Define values and discuss the element of corporate culture in detail.
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69) Describe the two elements of ethical values.
70) 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.
71) Explain the difficulties associated with telling a business that its ethical responsibilities
end with obedience to the law.
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72) Discuss the importance of precedents for most laws concerning business.
74) While using the risk assessment model, what might the decision makers include in their
assessment before taking action?
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75) Differentiate between practical reason and theoretical reason.
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Answer Key
1) FALSE
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In general, values are those beliefs that incline us to act or to choose one
way rather than another. One important implication of this guidance, of
course, is that an individual’s or a corporation’s set of values may lead
to either ethical or unethical results.
6) FALSE
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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.
10) TRUE
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14) C
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Ethics refers not only to an academic discipline, but to that arena of
human life studied by this academic discipline, namely, how human
beings should properly live their lives.
19) D
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Social sciences, such as psychology and sociology, also examine human
decision making and actions; but these sciences are descriptive rather
than normative. This is due to the fact that they provide an account of
how and why people act the way they do—they describe; as a normative
discipline, ethics seeks an account of how and why people should act a
certain way, rather than how they act.
23) C
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How should we live? This fundamental question of ethics can be
interpreted in two ways. "We" can mean each one of us individually, or
it might mean all of us collectively. In the first sense, this is a question
about how I should live my life, how I should act, what I should do, and
what kind of person I should be. This meaning of ethics is based on our
value structures, defined by our moral systems; and, therefore, it is
sometimes referred to as morality.
27) C
Social ethics raises questions of justice, public policy, law, civic virtues,
organizational structure, and political philosophy. It delves into
questions on how a society and social institutions, such as corporations,
ought to be structured and about how we ought to live together.
30) A
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Business ethics is concerned with how business institutions ought to be
structured, about whether they have a responsibility to the greater
society (corporate social responsibility or CSR), and about making
decisions that will impact many people other than the individual
decision maker. This aspect of business ethics asks people to examine
business institutions from a social rather than from an individual
perspective. This broader social aspect of ethics is referred to as decision
making for social responsibility.
31) C
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We can think of values as the underlying beliefs that cause us to act or to
decide one way rather than another.
36) B
A company’s core values are those beliefs and principles that provide
the ultimate guide to its decision making.
37) A
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Telling business that its ethical responsibilities end with obedience to the
law is just inviting more legal regulation.
41) D
It was the failure of personal ethics among companies such as Enron and
WorldCom that led to the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and many
other legal reforms.
42) C
The law cannot possibly anticipate every new dilemma that businesses
might face; so, often, there may not be a regulation for the particular
dilemma that confronts a business leader.
43) A
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Risk assessment is defined as a process to 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. It is important to recognize that risk assessment is not simply
a value-neutral process of professional judgment. While determining the
likelihood of one particular outcome versus another can be a
professional judgment for attorneys and accountants, deciding whether
the risk is worth taking is not.
45) B
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According to the tradition of theoretical reason, science is the great
arbiter of truth. Thus, theoretical reason is the pursuit of truth, which is
the highest standard for what we should believe.
51) A
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55) risk assessment
Acts and decisions that seek to promote human welfare are acts and
decisions based on ethical values. Thus, ethical values serve the ends of
human well-being.
60) social ethics
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Social ethics involves questions of political, economic, civic, and
cultural norms aimed at promoting human well-being. This aspect of
business ethics asks us to examine business institutions from a social
rather than from an individual perspective.
61) Theoretical
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63) Unethical behavior not only creates legal risks for a business, it
creates financial and marketing risks as well. Managing these risks
requires managers and executives to remain vigilant about their
company’s ethics. It is now clearer than ever that a company can lose in
the marketplace, go out of business, and its employees can go to jail if
no one is paying attention to the ethical standards of the firm.
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64) Part of the hesitation about teaching ethics involves the potential
for abuse; expecting teachers to influence behavior may be viewed as
permission for teachers to impose their own views on students. Many
believe that teachers should remain value-neutral in the classroom and
respect a student’s own views. Another part of this concern is that the
line between motivating students and manipulating students is a narrow
one. There are many ways to influence someone’s behavior, including
threats, guilt, pressure, bullying, and intimidation.
But not all forms of influencing behavior raise such concerns. There is
a major difference between manipulating someone and persuading
someone, between threatening and reasoning. The tension between
knowledge and behavior can be resolved by emphasizing ethical
judgment, ethical deliberation, and ethical decision making. The only
academically and ethically legitimate way to do this is through careful
and reasoned decision making. The fundamental assumption is that a
process of rational decision making, a process that involves careful
thought and deliberation, can and will result in behavior that is more
reasonable, accountable, and ethical.
65) Ethics refers not only to an academic discipline, but to that arena of
human life studied by this academic discipline, namely, how human
beings should properly live their lives.
Philosophers often emphasize that ethics is normative, which means
that it deals with our reasoning about how we should act. Social sciences
such as psychology and sociology also examine human decision making
and actions, but these sciences are descriptive rather than normative.
They provide an account of how and why people do act the way they do;
as a normative discipline, ethics seeks an account of how and why
people should act a certain way, rather than how they do act.
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66) The fundamental question of ethics “How should we live?” can be
interpreted in two ways.
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68) In general, values were earlier thought of as those beliefs that
incline us to act or to choose one way rather than another.A company's
core values, for example, are those beliefs and principles that provide the
ultimate guide in its decision making. Individuals can have their own
personal values and, importantly, institutions also have values. A
corporation's "culture" is a way of saying that a corporation has a set of
identifiable values that establish the expectations for what is "normal"
within that firm. These norms guide employees, implicitly more often
than not, to behave in ways that the firm values and finds worthy. One
important implication of this is that an individual or a corporation's set
of values may lead to either ethical or unethical result. The corporate
culture at Enron, for example, seems to have been committed to pushing
the envelope of legality as far as possible in order to get away with as
much as possible in pursuit of as much money as possible.
69) First, ethical values serve the ends of human well-being. Acts and
choices that aim to promote human welfare are acts and choices based
on ethical values.
Second, the well-being promoted by ethical values is not a personal
and selfish well-being. Ethical values are those beliefs and principles
that impartially promote human well-being.
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70) Holding that obedience to the law is sufficient to fulfill one's
ethical duties begs the question of whether or not the law itself is ethical.
Examples from history, Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa
being the most obvious, demonstrate that one's ethical responsibility
may run counter to the law.
On a more practical level, this question can have significant
implications in a global economy in which businesses operate in
countries with legal systems different from those of their home country.
For instance, some countries permit discrimination on the basis of
gender; but businesses that choose to adopt such practices remain
ethically accountable to their stakeholders for those decisions.
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72) Most of the laws that concern business are based on past cases that
establish legal precedents. Each precedent applies general rules to the
specific circumstances of an individual case. In most business situations,
asking "Is this legal?" is really asking "Are these circumstances similar
enough to past cases that the conclusions reached in those cases will also
apply here?" Since there will always be some differences between cases,
the question will always remain somewhat open.
74) Using the risk assessment model, decision makers might include in
their assessment before taking action:
● the likelihood of being challenged in court
● the likelihood of losing the case
● the likelihood of settling for financial damages
● a comparison of those costs
● the financial benefits of taking the action
● the ethical implication of the options available
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