Though ethics is a normative study of ethics, the social sciences engage in a descriptive study of ethics other fields such as the social sciences also study ethics; but they do so descriptively, not normatively. This means they explain the world but without reaching conclusions about whether it ought to be the way it is. Ethics itself being normative, attempts to determine whether or not standards are accurate.
A normative study is an investigation that attempts to reach normative conclusions i.e. conclusions regarding what things are good or bad or about which actions are right or wrong. In short, a normative study points to find what should be.
A descriptive study is one that does not seek to reach any conclusions regarding what things are truly good or bad or right or wrong. Instead, a descriptive study aims to explain or describe the world without seeking any conclusions about whether the world is as it should be.
Business ethics is a specific study of right and wrong applied to business institutions, policies and behaviors. This is a vital study since businesses are some of the most powerful institutions within modern society. Business organizations are the chief economic institutions through which people in modern societies take on the tasks of producing and distributing goods and services. They provide the basic frameworks within which the members of society combine their scarce resources as labor, land, capital, and technology into usable goods and they provide the channels through which these goods are dispersed in the form of consumer products, investors' return, employee salaries and government taxes. Today big corporate organizations dominate our economies. In 2003 General Motors, the world's largest automobile company had turnover of $195.6 billion and employed more than 325,000 workers; Wal-Mart the world's largest retailer had sales of $258.7 billion and 1,400,000 employees; IBM the world's largest computer company had revenues of $89 billion and 319,000 employees and General Electric the world's largest maker of electrical equipment had inventories of $134 billion and 305,000 employees.
Modern corporations are organizations that the law treats as immortal artificial "persons" who have the right to own and sell property, sue and be sued and enter into contracts all in their own name. As an organization the modern corporation consists of (a) stockholders who put in capital and own the corporation but their liability for the acts of the corporation is limited to the money they contributed, (b) employees who provide labor and who do the basic work related directly to the production of goods and services and (c) directors and officers who manage the corporation's assets and who carry the corporation through various levels of "middle managers." To deal with their complex coordination and control problems the managers and officers of large corporations adopt formal technical systems of rules that connect together the activities of the individuals of the organization so as to achieve certain objectives or outcomes. As long as the individual follows these rules the objectives can be achieved even if the individual does not know what it is and does not care about it.
Though business ethics cover a variety of topics, there are three basic kinds of issues:
A. Systemic issues- Queries rose about the political, economic, legal or other social systems within which businesses function. These consist of problems about the morality of capitalism or of the regulations, laws, industrial structures and social practices within which American businesses operate.
2. Corporate issues - Problems rose about a specific company. These include queries about the morality of the activities, practices, policies or organizational structure of an individual company taken as a complete.
3. Individual issues - Problems about a particular individual within an organization and their decisions and behaviors. These include queries about the morality of the actions, decisions or character of an individual.