The History of Business Ethics and Stakeholder Theory in America
Assignment Overview
The first part of your reading in Daniel Terris' book will include an overview of Lockheed Martin's organization and will lay out the research plan that Terris used to obtain information necessary for his work. This will be followed by a general overview of the evolution of business ethics in America.
Case Assignment
Towards the end of Chapter 1 of Daniel Terris' book (2005) he points out that the five ‘strands of thought' discussed in the chapter represent ‘shades of emphasis' in the field of corporate ethics and he claims that it is difficult for corporations to elude scrutiny across the board at all times. He then contends that:
Patching up a single [workplace ethics] problem will likely satisfy no one in the long run, when problems emerge in new and unforeseen areas. But this is just another way of saying that corporate ethics is a continuous process, rather than the rollout of a single product. What the history suggests is that responding to discrete problems of corruption or exploitation is a short-term fix. The challenge is to develop an approach that is sufficiently supple, dynamic, and self-critical to engage ethics issues in their most fundamental- and therefore most threatening- dimension.
Please compose a 4- to 5-page argumentative essay in support of the last sentence in his statement. "The challenge is to develop an approach that is sufficiently supple, dynamic, and self-critical to engage ethics issues in their most fundamental- and therefore most threatening- dimension" (Terris, 2005) in light of the materials.
Use historical examples from your text reading and do some research on your own (and/or provide legitimate examples) to support your key points and arguments.