Research in Business Ethics - Article Example

Businesspersons are motivated by indirect expectations and norms that can direct them toward violating ethical conduct (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013). The fact that this motivation makes up an ordinary business today compels Cremer and Bettignies to accept a degree of ethical disconnection. Research proves that some level of overall tolerance that businesspersons will behave according to indirect presumptions of competition and greed. Business is a difficult game, and violations of ethics do occur, which make up the entire time. The pragmatism of business ethics revolves around two prevalent observations. First, it is acceptable to stretch business limits but not violate legal boundaries. Second, morals entail “grey zones”, which makes it difficult for businesses to assume responsibility (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013).

Businesses consult current laws and regulations to learn what is unacceptable legally. This approach is beneficial in the sense that a business can practice what the law does not spell out as unacceptable. This outlook of stretching legal limits successfully blurs businesses' ethical limits and raises the opportunities that organizations ultimately cross legal boundaries. In the process, an entirely new reality is formed centered on missing data (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013). This gap successfully lies to organizational stockholders about the business’ true practices. Impractical business practices persist even when businesspersons know stretching the legal limit creates ambiguity in business ethics.

More opportunities to lie to shareholders, consumers, the government, and the community correspondingly facilitate increased returns and output. As a result, a paradox arises as a range of conflicts of interest that cannot be solved easily anymore pop up (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013). Cremer and Bettignies suggest that awareness is an essential gateway to realizing how stretching legal limits by organizations and lying to its stakeholders contributes to the “grey zone”. The article uses summarized research findings and hypotheses that demonstrate how the survival approach justifies immoral behavior (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013). When people experienced involuntary, reduced sleep, they activate the justification of such behavior. This example allows the article to illustrate how easily breaching ethical conduct cannot bother an individual willing to make up for a certain loss.

The article ends with recommendations for making business ethics more pragmatic. First, forming more control frameworks allows for a more direct method of identifying potential failures. Second, rewarding acceptable behavior is a psychological solution to a psychological dilemma. Lastly, penalizing unacceptable business practices sends a message to the community that violating business ethics is recognizable and intolerable (De Cremer & de Bettignies, 2013).