MANAGING-BUSINESS ETHICS AND OPPORTUNITY COSTS

Economic profits differ from accounting profits. Accounting profits ar e usually defined as revenues minus costs, and those costs as fixed an d variable. Economic profits enlist a third cost, opportunity costs. W hile these costs are difficult to determine with mathematical precisio n, they are nonetheless significant, especially for decision making in business. They reflect social costs and benefits, tensions between in dividual and corporate interests, and all internal and external consid erations which enter into decision making in business. It is precisely within opportunity cost decision making that Primeaux and Stieber sit uate business ethics.