GEN1000 Perspectives on General Education / Subject to Instructor’s Discretion
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Business ethics are a set of beliefs about right and wrong, good and bad in a business setting. Such beliefs appear to be spontaneous, sentimental, and personal. However, they stemmed substantially from people’s social cultures and values that incline them to act or to choose in one way rather than another. In Hong Kong, business ethics may even be more complex insofar as Western and Chinese ideologies are intertwined. In this module, three major components are addressed. The first component has to do with moral theories, such as utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. The second component has to do with Chinese ideologies, such as ren (benevolence), yi, (righteousness), and li (courtesy). The third component has to do with business ethics, such as ethical leadership, marketing ethics, and employee responsibilities. This module puts emphasis on encouraging students to think, to reason, and to criticize based on moral theories and principles from the interplay between Western and Chinese ideologies, rather than on providing right or wrong answers or promoting a specific set of conclusions. Accordingly, students are equipped to internalize the moral principles and apply them in their daily lives in the Chinese societies.
Upon completion of this module, students should be able to:
a. Identify and examine the understanding of moral reasoning and business ethics.
b. Interpret the characteristics of Chinese people from multidisciplinary perspectives, including psychological and sociological disciplines.
c. Critically evaluate Chinese cultures and values from business ethics standpoints.
d. Select appropriate moral principles for living and working in the Chinese sociocultural contexts.
1. Introduce various important philosophical thoughts on moral reasoning, such as Unitarianism, Libertarianism, civic virtue, and justice, etc.
2. Study fundamental issues of business ethics, such as moral rights in the workplace, ethical leadership, marketing ethics, and employee responsibilities, etc.
3. Examine a wide range of Chinese ideological issues, such as Chinese personality structure, Chinese values, beliefs in Chinese culture, Chinese achievement motivation, Chinese childhood socialization, Chinese personal relationships (guanxi), Chinese social interaction, and filial piety, etc.
4. Explore, integrate, and criticize the interplays among moral reasoning, business ethics, and Chinese psychology.
1. Class participation (10%)
2. Test (20%)
3. Group Presentation (30%)
4. Individual Paper (40%)
