Morality in business: Oxymoron?

By Elfren S. Cruz
The Philippine Star
Updated May 26, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Today, the Filipino businessman like  business leaders around the world, are confronted with moral questions that cannot be decided simply on the basis of what is “good for the company.” There is the issue of the minimum wage vs. the living wage that institutions like the Catholic Church have been advocating for more than a century. Then there is the issue of contractualization and the continuing practice of hiring “casuals” who will be laid off after a few months work and then rehired again to avoid giving them regular status.

Tax evasion and money laundering through tax havens in places like the British Virgin Islands are now considered as an integral part of doing business. And when transparency about financial transactions and bank accounts are demanded, businessmen object on the basis of the “right to privacy.”

The article is here.

Reforming the minimum wage: Toward a psychological perspective

Laura Smith
American Psychologist, Vol 70(6), Sep 2015, 557-565.

Abstract

The field of psychology has periodically used its professional and scholarly platform to encourage national policy reform that promotes the public interest. In this article, the movement to raise the federal minimum wage is presented as an issue meriting attention from the psychological profession. Psychological support for minimum wage reform derives from health disparities research that supports the causal linkages between poverty and diminished physical and emotional well-being. Furthermore, psychological scholarship relevant to the social exclusion of low-income people not only suggests additional benefits of financially inclusive policymaking, it also indicates some of the attitudinal barriers that could potentially hinder it. Although the national living wage debate obviously extends beyond psychological parameters, psychologists are well-positioned to evaluate and contribute to it.

The entire article is here.