Business is not merely a profession, it is a lifestyle that everyone must opt for. It is a crucial driving force for life just like fuel for a vehicle. Unfortunately, not many talks about the value of ethics in this expedition. An ethical business is always truthful. Is there any place better than School to learn such crucial lessons?
Amid this discussion, we must also record that activities can be the finest way to learn these empirical notions. Thus in this post, we will look into some handpicked Business Ethics activities for high school students.
Business Ethics- What does it mean?
Executing business with a set of morals ensures veracity. Thus, a study of proper business policies and practices, especially regarding possibly controversial issues gets imperative. This is where Business ethics gets prominent, by enabling the learners to make responsible decisions at the right time to ensure smooth transactions.
Therefore, Business Ethics is that specialised practice that demonstrates what is right or wrong, and thus appropriate entail in the workplace. In most cases, these are guided by the company regulations that ensure to keep them away from illegitimate practices, especially in instances like bribery and discrimination.
These pragmatic standards turn out obligatory for ensuring moral attitude in executive-level management, thus warranting honesty. Thus, altogether, these ethics outlines acceptable behaviour beyond constitutional control.
Need Of Business Ethics Activities In Schools
Educating about Business Ethics through activities would implant exceptional management skills like critical thinking, communication, reporting, and presentation. Additionally, it can add value in the following ways:
- Students are introduced to many new concepts as they are schooled. As a part of this, these activities establish them to the business world flawlessly. By mimicking real-life activities, learners can assimilate how to deal with actual circumstances.
- Life is often unforeseeable; thus, having comprehensive knowledge seldom assists. Selfsame is the case with business ethics too. These make learners acknowledge multiple disciplines like productive human resource management, entrepreneurship, finance and service operations,
- Not many of the pupils are collaborative in schools. These activities can boost creativity and collaboration since they sometimes focus on the alliance.
- Before learners can develop problem-solving skills, they should possess the potential to identify complication. Business ethics activities ensure this.
- Do you know having exceptional business skills can make you a fine employee too. These activities will ensure you are aligned with the organisation being ethical. This is also known as Advanced Management Skills
Activities For Introducing The Basics Of Business Ethics
Business ethics can be inculcated and reinforced, and what can be better than high school to do so. We have elucidated some business ethics amplifying activities that corroborate academics in this accord. Pondering into its relevance, you must have been exhilarated to look at activities that ameliorate business ethics. Here are those picks:
1. A tour for Tycoon
Business is all about having pragmatic knowledge. Isn’t it a great idea to invite business leaders instead of reading about them? A Tour of Tycoon does precisely the same.
A business tycoon is invited to school to interact with students. The same is intimated to all the pupils beforehand. Additionally, the teacher guides them to prepare a set of questions to ask the star. When the leading light arrives, a formal interaction is made, which is followed by questions and answers sessions. After this, all the students submit what they learned on a paper to the teacher for evaluation.
2. Communal Duty
For every merchant prince, business responsibility flatters social responsibility. It is also known as corporate social responsibility in technical expression. Communal duty prospers this ability in all the learners making them understand them finer.
Teachers ask students to create a poster showcasing an organization and how it can contribute to society and expeditiously use its resources for community services. Later, the teachers can conduct a social responsibility workshop or fair in the class itself at a smaller level. Here, the learners can get a chance to showcase these banners. Teachers can be the judges, and prizes can be awarded to top-scoring pupils.
3. Plan B
Not only in the world of business, having an alternative plan is a requisite trait in every module of life. Plan B activity encourages students to think of an alternative for every possible situation.
To start with, the teacher forms the entire class into small groups of five. Each group is assigned a real-life business or workplace scenario and one solution. Since there can be more than one solution in this instance, they need to be explored. In this accord, the team should discuss and come up with as many alternative solutions as possible. Each member can come up with individualised solutions too. The team that comes up with maximum alternatives is the winner. This activity prospers the attitude of teamwork as well.
4. SWOT with Balanced Scorecard
A business is always analysed using a SWOT analysis. The four dimensions include Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Analysing these attributes can give an excellent idea that leads to the successful identification of the situation.
This activity makes students perform a SWOT analysis on themselves. To start with, the teacher asks them to write strengths within 10 minutes. These include their abilities, skills, previous experiences, knowledge on topics, etc. Now, they need to mention weaknesses on the other side of the page. These may include resources and skills needed, ethics missing, contacts needed, and other limitations. These are not meant to discourage; rather, they are meant to evaluate what aspects they need to focus on.
Now, it is the time for opportunities. These may include positive trends, support, networking challenges, technology, etc. Finally, threats may include risks, changes in circumstances, and obstacles. Once each student prepares a clear-cut sheet, they keep it reserved for a month. In this span, they have to focus on their weaknesses and threats.
After a month, all the pupils prepare a new sheet of their SWOT analysis. Now, the teacher asks them to compare how much they improved in this month. A prepared candidate will notice reasonable changes.
Summing Up
Business ethics is not only confined to trading, it also has a remarkable role in leadership and teamwork. Evidently, all these notions are conjugated. This significance is seen distinctly with large companies. If an organisation is perceived to be ethically compromising, investors emigrate from buying stocks. Not only this, these standards keep the business in ethical curbs and evoke them to take care of society too, which is better known as CSR (corporate social responsibility). Ensuring these can thus provide exceptional service through the retention of quality employees.
All of this guides us to the importance of business ethics for everyone. Activity-based learning is not new, especially for teen learners; thus, they form an impeccable idea to preach business ethics as well. Mull into our picks to see if any of them comes in handy for you.
Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.
Explore a plethora of invaluable resources and insights tailored for high schoolers at TheHighSchooler, under the guidance of Sananda Bhattacharya’s expertise. You can follow her on Linkedin