Volume 5, 2018
Business Ethics
Jim Unah
Pages 103-107
African Presuppositions of Business Ethics
Business ethics relates to the whole gamut of corporate governance and encompasses applied or professional considerations of the morality of human and organizational conduct. As in general ethics, corporate ethics proceeds from certain principles that define what constitutes morality in business dealings. There are a myriad of business ethical principles, all of which are said to erupt from three prime documents around the world, namely: the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Principles of Corporate Governance (1999); the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance (CACG) Principles for Corporate Governance (1999); and either the first or second King Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa (Institute of Directors of South Africa [IOD], 1994, 2002). But a critical assessment of these documents and ruling moral trends in the discipline reveal that they are short of an essential connection with a fundamental philosophy of man. This lacuna tends to alienate people from its core values, objectives and benefits. This paper shall chart African ontological presuppositions for business ethics, to establish its essential link with humanity.