Engelland, Brian T.

Engelland, Brian T.
Publisher: Rockwell Press
2007
ISBN: 9780963622396
Collaborators: William D. Eshee, Jr.

Ethical decision-making is often a puzzling challenge for business leaders. News reports describing indictments and guilty verdicts of corporate CEOs provide a sober reminder that making sound ethical decisions requires care and prior study. Ethics Essentials for Business Leaders pulls all the pieces together in a compact handbook designed for both current and future business leaders. The book offers several distinctive advantages:

• First, it is oriented toward the role and actions of leaders in a business environment so that readers learn how to act in order to influence good ethical decision-making as they assume leadership positions in all types of organizations.
• Second, it is written from a practically-minded pro-business viewpoint by authors who have taught and practiced business ethics for many years.
• Third, it provides a balanced perspective regarding the appropriate role of the reader's personal ethics, as informed by culture and religious belief, toward shaping organizational ethical decision-making.

The book begins with a discussion of six reasons why business leaders make bad decisions, then presents an ethical decision frame-work designed to counter balance those reasons. In other chapters, natural law is explained, the contributions of eight important philosophers are summarized, the four levels of corporate social responsibility are discussed, and the relationship between laws and ethics is presented. In the final chapter, ten steps are recommended for developing and ensuring an ethical organization.