Business Ethics in the Business World - Essay Example

? Business ethics in the business world al Affiliation] The concept of business ethics is debated much among the critics and scholars to evaluate its influence on the progress of a business and the role played by it in advancing the causes of a business organization. While some believe that business ethics is an effective strategy which makes the business owners strive to do good in every area by making ethical decisions and not being party to undesirable business activities, there are also many who do not think business ethics could even exist in the business world because the business rules do not match with the ethical code of the normal world. However, the aim of business ethics is to encourage the business leaders to strive to achieve ethical perfection and to not be put off by the fact that ethics could not be always 100% applied in every area and decision-making process. This essay aims at scrutinizing the role played by business ethics and illuminating multiple ways by which it works to enhance a business’s functionality. Essay Acknowledging the importance of ethical standards in the business world is highly important because ethics form the foundation of all successful and reputable businesses around the globe. Any business lacking ethical principles is bound to crash sooner or later. It is critically important that business organizations take maximum advantage of this ideology. The role of ethics in every way of life is indisputable which is why discussing it also remains highly important in the context of business. General consensus is that even businesses started with a prodigious sum of investment could drastically fail if decisions are made without paying considerable attention to the role of ethics. Therefore, it is crucially important to acknowledge the role of ethics while designing business strategies, managing workforce, and satisfying customers because it is the ethical principles which primarily direct businesses in the right direction and illuminate which elements need to be curbed in order to avoid failure. Most of the business practices and changes fail to be incorporated seriously because the responsible people do not know much about the ethical rules which should be followed as a way of ensuring foolproof implementation. This essay is primarily based on contemplating the nature of role played by ethics in the business world in addition to evaluating the extent to which it regulates the solidarity and strength of a business. (Texans Credit Union, n.d.) The above figure demonstrates different components of Texan's Credit Union's business ethics strategy which promotes one unified message: "Do the right thing" (Texans Credit Union, n.d.). Texans's Credit Unions is a successful company based in Texas and it is easy to appreciate from the above figure that business ethics promote shared values, organizational commitment, motivation, good conduct, positive leadership and operating practices, communication hotline, and vision in an organization. It also helps in eliminating the excessive use of power by the employers because it makes them realize that employees form one of the most important stakeholders for the business who invest long hours of gruel work to manage the consequences of every decision and policy. In the absence of ethics, businesses are readily exposed to both internal and external chaos. The leaders who reject the notion of ethics prefer to lead employees with force and violence and often act as tyrants depending on the use of intimidation and threats. Such a negative attitude rips the talented workforce off of motivation, dedication, and work commitment and business ethics work to just reverse this condition. Much research has been done to evaluate the nature of influence exerted by authoritativeness on ethics and it is revealed that negative leading styles tend to kill the function of ethics in every business area. Unhealthy use of power in a business settlement not based on ethics leads to corrupting the workforce most definitely. It is a deplorable fact that even presently many employers and managers around the globe habitually forget to professionally address the sensitive line between exercise of power on diverse workers and work ethics as discussed by Clegg, Kornberger, and Pitsis (2005, p. 153). It is worth mentioning here that ethics does not necessarily function to extinguish the use of power in an organization because exercise of power in moderation by the superiors obviously holds importance for directing and regulating the employees. It is true that the concept of business ethics was not always appreciated in the business world and only two or three decades back it started flourishing gradually. This is because the post-World War II research conducted on organization theory and management by scholars like Bennis, Berkowitz, Affinito, and Malone (cited in Clegg, Kornberger, and Pitsis, 2005, p. 153) approved the exercise of absolute power in the business organizations. This was when it was not widely acknowledged that ethics could promote a wide variety of effective business elements as a result of which it was thought that only execution of power could help an organization in reaching the desired objectives. Such a flawed trend was also based on then business leaders’ concepts derived from bureaucratic authoritative structure but more recent research based on factual case studies implies that people now tend to resist formal authoritative forces operating in an organization because they fear they would interfere with their individual identities in a very devastating way. Business ethics tend to preserve the workers’ individual identities and develop organizational commitment in them instead. Employee empowerment is also a concept derived from and fuelled by the business ethics which also strengthens a kind of environment in which the workforce develops increased organizational commitment. It is stressed that such commitment is related “positively to a variety of desirable work outcomes including employee job satisfaction, motivation, and performance, and related negatively to absenteeism and turnover” (Mathieu & Zajac, cited in Sahoo, Behera & Tripathy, 2010, p. 45). However, the concept of business ethics also has its share of criticism because not everyone believes in its credibility and practicability. For example, Collins (1994) in his study Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron? argues that business ethics is an oxymoron meaning two very different concepts are tried to be merged together here which is not possible in reality. By saying that business ethics is an oxymoron, it is suggested that business and ethics do not go hand in hand and there cannot be any ethics in a business because both these factors stand in stark contrast to each other. The popularity of business ethics does not seem to make all people believe in it because there are still many who do not think it even could exist in the business world. It is argues that business ethics is an oxymoron because either the business world is inherently bad or a business is bound to play bad in some way. The world of business is not subjected to the similar ethical standards as the rest of the society and is very much like a game of poker where at many points, lying and cheating become absolutely essential and unavoidable in order to achieve success and maintain stability. Business world is very different from the rest of the world and is subjected to a very different set of ethical practices. What is perceived as right and wrong in the business world also stands in contrast to the right and wrong standards of the society. It can be seen that many undesirable business activities like exploitation of workers and payment of bribes to the government by the business owners stem from this very idea that business ethics is an oxymoron. Calling business ethics an oxymoron is a cliche which works to cultivate the flawed assumption that the leadership practices cannot be considered valid unless they are 100% in accordance with the ethical standards. Achieving 100% perfection is not possible and business ethics also does not insist upon it because this could quite effectively push many business leaders away from trying to be ethical in their decisions. Business ethics could not be called an oxymoron only because in some business situations it is hard to comply with ethics. Rather striving for ethical perfection in every business area as much as possible is stressed by the concept of business ethics. Business ethics imply that the job of a good businessperson is to efficiently take care of all the business stakeholders like employees, customers, and investors and reach all decisions as objectively as possible. It is also important for an employer to act responsively, behave good-naturedly with the co-workers, maintain an open communication hotline, prevent discrimination and diversity issues within workplace, and provide timely advice to be called a successful and ethical businessperson. Being open to workers is a major objective of business ethics because it prevents many confusions occurring between bosses and employees which could prove to be devastating for the organizational environment no matter how much perfectionist the boss may be otherwise. Leading by example and behaving in accordance with the professional code of conduct as discussed earlier also forms a critically important area of business ethics. This is why it is claimed that “walking at the front isn’t really leadership unless the person in front is actually choosing the direction!” (Mills 2005, p. 14). Owing to a haphazard and imbalanced leadership which rejects to implement the highly effective and influential option of ethics, the organizational setup soon crashes to pieces because it easily falls prone to chaos on different work levels. Moreover, refusing to believe in the existence of business ethics only because in some situations business and ethics cannot go hand in hand could easily make the production process stagnated and slow plus many business objectives could become virtually unreachable. Concluding, this much becomes clear from the above discussion that when it is honestly strived by the businesspeople to merge together business and ethics in different areas like leadership, decision-making processes, employee management, and customer satisfaction, the consequences prove to be quite fruitful for the organizations. In the present fiercely competitive and dynamic business world, it is a widely known reality that business and ethics go hand in hand. Though business and ethics are not always exactly able to be blended together, the concept of business ethics still works to make the employers realize that absolute use of power could quite literally cripple many important elements of organizational behavior essential for vigorous business life like motivation, commitment, and professionalism. The absolute absence of ethics in a business organization is based on the orthodox belief that business ethics is an oxymoron which negatively interferes with promotion of shared values and prevents them from expanding. References: Clegg, S., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. (2005). Managing Power and Politics in Organizations. Sage Publishers. Collins, J.W. (1994). Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron? Business Horizons, 37(5), 1-8. Mills, D.Q. (2005). Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live. MindEdge Press. Sahoo, CK, Behera, N, & Tripathy, SK 2010, ‘Employee Empowerment and Individual Commitment: An Analysis From Integrative Review of Research’, Employment Relations Record, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 40-56. Read More