Corporations with codes of ethics, according to Meiners, Ringleb, and Edwards (1994), are cited for legal infractions by federal regulatory agencies less frequently than companies lacking such codes. Most corporate ethical codes address such issues as relations with the government, customer/supplier relationships, political contributions, conflicts of interest, accountability issues, and relationships with other stakeholders such as employees and shareholders (Meiners, et al, 1994). The vast majority of corporate ethical codes respond primarily to the law and the rule of law and not necessarily to either moral or ethical value systems independent of the law (Miller & Jentz, (2000).
It is the purpose of this project to construct a Code of Ethics for a hypothetical organization, called herein ôBarton Manufacturing,ö a mid-sized manufacturing firm in the auto parts industrial sector. Barton Manufacturing is a publicly owned American company employing more than 3,000 workers in a unionized shop. Consequently, as Miller and Jentz (2000) have noted, the firm must respond not only to governmental regulations covering such issues as the environment, OSHA, financial accountability, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and so on, but also to its unionized workforce. Its code of conduct and ethics must therefore be comprehensive in addressing a number of different prerequisites for legal, responsible, and humanistic business requirements.
Philosophically, Meiners, et al (1994) have commented that many business organizations ground their ethical codes in the moral theory known as the ethics of respect for persons or RP Morality. The moral standard of RP Morality can be stated as follows: ôthose actions are right that equally respect each human person as a moral agent" (Meiners, et al, 1994, p. 201). This ethical theory is derived, in part, from the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kan...