What Do Ethics/Morality in Business Mean

What do ethics/morality in business mean? Difference between success and failure! The most important attribute that distinguishes business long-term success, are the practices of admirable business ethics/morality, which are then interpreted as the integrity of the company.

So in essence, ethics/morality in business is the behavioral aspect that dictates all dealings within their world.In the business world most ownership or management groups, describe this function in three ways, avoiding breaking the law, avoiding actions that will result in law suits and negative publicity that reflects negatively on the image of the company. The reason these are of the utmost concern is that they involve the loss of profits and reputation. Unfortunately, the moral and ethical way companies do business varies drastically; it is inherent to their perception of what is ethically right or is ethically wrong.In a research study by IBE (The Institute of Business Ethics), the findings where clear that companies displaying a clear commitment to moral conduct distinguished and dominated the companies displaying a demeanor of poor ethical conduct. The study has demonstrated that it was profitable to be ethical, by inspection of the financial returns of the companies that participated in the research study. Being trustworthy, meeting obligations, maintaining accounting controls and being respectful did equate into long-term success with economic and profitable growth.

Instilling this inherent unambiguous style of doing business will be extremely evident to all you do business with, including your competition. Bribery is a form of corruption, that implies the giving of money or gift that alters the behavior of the recipient (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law), it is difficult to define what a bribe is in business; if you bring a client to dinner for a business meeting, for example, trying to secure a signature on a contract to build their house, is that a bribe or an unethical business practice?Let’s say under the same circumstances you are trying to secure goods from a supplier at a reduced unit price, is this a bribe or unethical business practice or is it exceptional marketing tactics? Let’s look at the scenario put before us within our assignment, is it ethical for executives to accept bribes as an inducement to buy a companies products; we would have to determine what the alleged bribes where, was it a dinner or maybe a night out on the town with the tab being picked up by the company trying to sell their goods to the executives company, was it a onetary amount and how was the incident facilitated. Another scenario, you give a campaign donation to a political candidate, for their consideration and vote if elected for a Bill that you support, is that a bribe, it happens all the time in the political arena of our government, with the parties not being indicted or accused of any crimes. There are many factors to take into consideration when deliberating this topic that we do not have the answers to nor are they at our disposal within our assignment.On the other hand, if there are clear specifics within the company’s bylaws or contractual agreements with their employees that describe how the company defines bribes and actions to be taken, this would define their morality and legal stand and the appropriateness in the firing of the executives. Ethics and social responsibility are important in any business because reputation is everything, and these ethical attributes start at the top, then are instilled and enforced by company policy to all in the organization.Unethical procedures within a company will eventually cause mistrust, but that’s not all, remember people talk and words of the mouth are a powerful vehicle in undermining or even destroying any company.

We all have witnessed the downfall of businesses, remember ‘Enron’ an energy company based in Houston, Texas, where share holders lost $11 billion dollars and over 4000 employees lost their jobs, due to use of accounting loopholes, poor financial reporting and special-purpose entities that would potentially isolate the firm from financial risk that where all facilitated by corporate greed and unethical practices! Wikipedia, The free Encyclopedia, Nov. 2001) It is important to keep in mind that business failure is a direct reflection of a lack of business ethics, and the true understanding of right and wrong and implementation of the correct morals and ethics create long-term business and economic success. Customer relationship is omnipotent in achieving long-term business success; it is essential that the business is founded on principals that are based on sound ethical practice. This will create an atmosphere of trust insuring existing customer return and enhancing the migration of new relationships and customers to your firm.Success attained without a foundation of strong ethics will ultimately be short-lived, however there are some exceptions to this but they must be considered as highly unlikely.