Importance of Ethics for Businesses

The business world is growing every day, many corporations and consulting firms are being built and being contemplated on. And as any other field of work, the foundations of these businesses are the morals and professional practices of assisting personnel which help in reaching the ultimate future and eventually success of the business.

All these standard practices involve prospects of creating a suitable and healthy environment for the growth and development of various corporations (Flynn 2008). All these principles and practices are the foundations of business management, ethics and integrity.

Ethics in work involves learning what is right and what is wrong, and the ability to differentiate between the two. The right thing doesn’t always have to be the straightforward issue, as in “should one steal from the company, or lie to his colleagues”.

The right thing can either be based on moral values, or based on a certain situation. What may be acceptable in one situation, maybe isn’t acceptable in another, ultimately it’s up to the individual to decide. It is called the “science of conduct” and includes fundamental ground rules by which we live our lives. Ethics have been discussed for over 2500 years, since the time or Plato and Socrates. What becomes an ethical guideline today is often translated to a law, rule or regulation tomorrow. Some of those values might be honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect in regard to effects of services or products and in relationships with stakeholders.

Not always there are rules and guidelines for leaders or managers through complex dilemmas about being right or showing what to do. It is more of a common sense and general behavior that suits everybody rather than a certain person or group. Ethics in a workplace helps ensure when managers and leaders struggle in times of crises, they keep strong moral compass, although it also provides numerous other benefits.

 

Management and Ethics

Success in a business front is attributed with good leadership from its managers.

Employees judge their company or workplace as ethical or not, based on the actions and behavior of their bosses and leaders, whether it is consciously or unconsciously. That’s one of the main reasons why managers are considered the most impactful in a company. You can train almost anybody to perform a certain task, but it’s much more difficult to make or find a leader, who’s has the needed qualities for this particular workplace.

It is fundamentally important to craft a procedure that ensures achievement of human dignity in the scenario of working like a collective unity, thereby helping in achieving the basic objective or accomplishing a specific mission. “A credo generally describes the highest values to which the company aspires to operate. It contains the ‘thou shalts’. A code of ethics specifies the ethical rules of operations. It’s the ‘thou shalt nots”.

In the latter 1980s, The Conference Board, a leading business membership organization, found that 76% of corporations surveyed had codes of ethics. The vision and mission of any company is the vector that gives direction, ethics help on achieving them successfully and efficiently. Ethics help procedures go according to plan, ensuring good relationship between employees, companies and customers.

In large organizations that include several programs or departments, managers usually develop an overall corporate code of ethics, and then split it to guide each department. These codes are often developed out of human resources and legal departments alone, which is not entirely correct, because codes may be insufficient if only intended to ensure that policies are legal.

Achieving the need for the community and the mission set by the business fronts is the ultimate goals of many business leaders Michael, (2000). It is the ultimate goal, but the issue is how you achieve it, ways may differ, but the result should remain the same. Managers are often faced with highly complex and real-to-life dilemmas with no clear guidelines, rather than the simple issues with a clear choice of whether or not an employee should steal, lie, cheat, break terms of contact, etc.

Doug Wallace, Twin Cities-based consultant, explains that one knows when they have a significant ethical conflict when there is presence of a) significant value conflicts among differing interests, b) real alternatives that are equality justifiable, and c) significant consequences on “stakeholders” in the situation. An ethical dilemma exists when one is faced with having to make a choice among these alternatives.

Leadership entails all the information in regard to proper team work enforcement, personal relationship development among the employers and employees, these return will develop a base that is collectively working in unison into achieving the truth in the objectives and agendas of the business leaders. To achieve effective team work, employees should have and maintain healthy ethics among each other, treating with respect, honesty and integrity. This will facilitate all procedures and makes objectives clear when good communication is found.

 

Business Ethics: A Framework

The modernization of the current dynamic world has led to the development of an expansive business world model, which offers solutions from homegrown perspective to a wider world perspective. Technology has advanced to an unbelievable extent during the last hundred years, even less, creating a very wide range of possibilities in various fields, opening doors to new companies and innovations that accumulate like a snowball. This forces organizations to create new strategies and implement new methods to keep a competing edge over each other. That leads to changes in the ethics field as well.

Long ago, companies used to have sort of a dictatorship, employees that do whatever their boss says, with minimal complains, regardless of the fact that they’re unhappy, nowadays everything has changed, at least in developed countries, people have the freedom of speech and choice, laws protecting employees in any workplace. This also created regulations in organizations, of what you can and can’t do.

Attributed to business are the underlying principals who have managed to come together with terms that are mostly beneficial to the whole community. These business principals have guidelines that have managed to guide them in their daily workloads in order to capitalize in opportunities and minimize the margin of errors, (Sims, 2000).

Therefore in the business domain there are rules like principles that guide and implement principals’ ideas in order to gain the beneficial advantage in gaining the common good in the business community. It follows that business ethics are the principles that guide the business principals, managers, management and project development teams that are in every field of the business world, to develop objectives, vision, mission and agendas that are beneficial to the business development and existence.

 

Business Ethics and Business Success: Motivating Employees

As per Sims, (2000) integrity therefore is the commitment of personal principles, the value of honesty. Integrity is the core consistency for one’s beliefs and actions. Ethics and integrity are therefore all about making of right and consistent decisions and then the effects of the decisions made. For example an individual with ambitions of integrity will demand for a larger role than being part of the organizational machine cog. Hence the integrity perspective promotes organizations to enquire on how organizations can be able to stimulate employees in putting more heart plus minds on tasks through giving them space on individual judgment.

Consistency is a must in strategies and production, or offering a service, as well as it is in decision making when it comes to similar subjects. This creates honesty and reliability, when a manager knows the best approach, by not only making a fast decision, but also making the right decision. Consistency means that the last unit is as good as the first one.

Motivating employees is a leader’s job. The leader knows how to get to them in the most effective way, touching everybody, and finding what’s important for each individual. By correctly motivating employees, the organization can achieve higher results, leaving all its members satisfied. Proper motivation keeps employees focused on the main goal, keeps them excited about new accomplishments and new targets, embracing whatever comes along and adapting to changes in a diplomatic way.

 

Business Ethics and Success: The Role of Management

Management has the biggest impact on ethical behavior. It has to make sure employees are engaging in behaviors that meet organizational goals. Managers have to control all activities of their employees.

The traditional way of doing so is by using formalized rules, this means having a bureaucratic system, material rewards and punishments, and maybe other norms that can determine how work should be done. By managing the corporate culture, they directly manage company’s goals and needs as well. Members of a company should have shared sense of purpose and meanings, which will enhance effectiveness on the long term.

 

Business Ethics and Success: Learning from Experience

Business organizations are currently on the rush to undertake integrity initiative; these initiatives vary much according to the implementation approaches employed. While some business organizations focus on value of integrity on basic obligations like respect and honesty, obedience and fair dealing, other organizations emphasize much on aspiration values that are ethical but not much morally obligatory, (Johnson, 2012).

Company’s every now and again make assumptions and future plans for their progress, making a plan or schedule, which helps organize work and make a timeframe for every action or aim, until eventually the big goal is reached. These assumptions are made according to past experiences, whether they were success or failure, and on future goals, likewise, ethics are based on them too.

Certain needs have to be met, so leaders and managers always take into consideration past experiences and learn from them, to improve future work. Every body makes mistakes, the important thing is to learn from them and not make them over and over.

Management has found that each focus is crucial plus often it leads to unexpected contributions, better competitiveness, key relationships and even a work environment that organizations will depend on.

A strong corporate culture should be able to assist in attracting plus retaining talented people, provision of quality goods and services. It also needs to create an environment for enabling talented individuals to achieve their potential and creating a foundation for community relationship and growth. This is the role of organizational culture and leaders to find or keep that talent within this company, by helping their growth and supporting their work and decisions when necessary.

 

Business Ethics and Success: The Role of Professional Associations

Professional integrity is individual integrity that an individual displays in personal life.

There are a number of professional bodies that have been created to design professional codes of ethics or conduct that guides professionals in the provision of their duties and responsibilities.

Hence the professionals are committed to sets of ideals and principles that define them. These sets of ethics define the integrity of each profession in ensuring that provision of goods and services are done within the required limitations.

Thus basic ethical values like honesty, fair dealing, law obedience, consideration and compassion are therefore presented and realized.

Professional integrity and ethics are an essential part of modern business societies to ensure that all values and considerations are achieved.

Conclusion

With increased competition, advanced technologies and changing business environment, organizations are finding it difficult to survive. This forces to implement new methods of work, as well as new strategies, making the workplace and tasks more effective and efficient, reducing costs, and achieving goals in a timely manner. Companies are improving their style of work in all aspects, one of them is ethics, strengthening the employee-employee, employee-employer, and company-customer relationships. This might be costly and time consuming at first, but at some point it will pay off, and the results can be very significant.

Respect, integrity, honesty and loyalty are the main factors that affect ethics, team work is needed to achieve the organizational goal, and all members should have the same sense of purpose.

Healthy ethics always come for managers and leaders that abide and implement them. They are the role models of showing how things should be done the proper way.

Business ethics come from a healthy and productive organizational culture, that also comes from prior experiences and future visions, that’s why they should always be improved and used by all participating members for business success.