Ethical dimensions in the conduct of business: Business ethics, corporate social responsibility and the “ethics in business” as a sense of business ethics

Business ethics is a system of moral principles applied in the commercial world. It is a whole new scientific area because it combines law theory and politics as much as philosophical and historical documents. Ethics become a term very flexible and have many different aspects. Business ethics provide guidelines for acceptable behaviour by organizations in both their strategy formulation and day-to-day operations. An ethical approach is becoming necessary both for corporate success and a positive corporate image. Especially nowadays ethics in business are obligated because many businessmen are only interested in making money despite the ethical costs or the harm they would probably cause to people or even to nature (environmental pollution). Corporate social responsibility defines all the cases of ethics that businessmen can follow effectively. Many organizations are choosing to make a public commitment to ethical business by formulating codes of conduct and operating principles. In doing so, they must translate into action the concepts of personal and corporate accountability, corporate giving and corporate governance. Key Words: Business ethics, corporate social responsibility, ethics in business, corporate governance, ethics of sales and marketing, ethics of production, ethics of technology, general business ethics and international business ethics