Above the Bottom Line or Beyond Our Control

Above the Bottom Line: An Introduction to Business Ethics

Author: Robert C C Solomon

ABOVE THE BOTTOM LINE focuses on the issues of the individual in the business environment, rather than focusing on large-scale, ethical decision making. Business is defended as a necessary and valuable component of contemporary life, a range of entrepreneurial ventures that should be approached in a principled, thoughtful, and honest manner. Looking at the importance of corporate culture, students are given direction in making personal and professional decisions at work, relating these to the concepts of social responsibility, employer and employee rights, whistle-blowing, corporate governance, bankruptcy, and many other timely business issues. This text explores moral choices within the business environment, and considers current business policy issues. It is also a guide on how to think about business and a life in business, using vignettes from history and bits of literature and anthropology to broaden the students' outlook on commercial endeavors.

Booknews

A textbook for a semester course in a business curriculum. Presents the principles and criteria for making ethical decisions in relation to law, corporate relations, social responsibility, privacy, and other contexts. First published in 1983. No bibliography. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Business Ethics as Personal and Professional Integrity. 1. Business, Ethics, and the Good Life. 2. Business Life, Law, and Ethics. 3. Conflicts of Interest and the Meaning of Morality. 4. Corporations and Cultures. 5. Rules, Roles, and Responsibilities. 6. Competition, Games, and Decisions. 7. Rationality, Ends and Means, Co-Operation, and Co-Ordination. 8. "It's Not My Problem:" The Concept of Responsibility. 9. Social Responsibility and the Stakeholder. 10. Free Enterprise and Social Justice. 11. Human Rights and International Business. 12. Freedom and Power: Privacy and Pressures in the Workplace. 13. The Meaning of Work. 14. The Personal Side of Business: Friendship, Family, Sex, and Marriage. Conclusion: Doing Good and Doing Well.

Go to: Weeknight Survival Cookbook or Ice Cream

Beyond Our Control?: Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace

Author: Stuart Biegel

Best Information Science Book of the Year, American Society for Information Science & Technology, 2002, Finalist in the 2001 Communication Policy Research Award presented by The Donald McGannon Communication Research Center. and Winner of the Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture presented by the Media Ecology Association

This book provides a framework for thinking about the law and cyberspace, examining the extent to which the Internet is currently under control and the extent to which it can or should be controlled. It focuses in part on the proliferation of MP3 file sharing, a practice made possible by the development of a file format that enables users to store large audio files with near-CD sound quality on a computer. By 1998, software available for free on the Web enabled users to copy existing digital files from CDs. Later technologies such as Napster and Gnutella allowed users to exchange MP3 files in cyberspace without having to post anything online. This ability of online users to download free music caused an uproar among music executives and many musicians, as well as a range of much-discussed legal action.

Regulation strategies identified and discussed include legislation, policy changes, administrative agency activity, international cooperation, architectural changes, private ordering, and self-regulation. The book also applies major regulatory models to some of the most volatile Internet issues, including cyber-security, consumer fraud, free speech rights, intellectual property rights, and file-sharing programs.