Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron - Essay Example

?Is business ethics an oxymoron? Introduction: There has occurred a significant change in the attitude of people all over the world with the passage of time. Over the time, people have become more concerned about the health and safety aspects of the businesses they make a part of and the way they impact the environment. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that the conventional business practices have caused a decline in the natural resources. There are issues of sustainability for the future generations. The development so far has not been quite sustainable and the natural resources have been used prudently. No consideration has been given to the impact of business practices on the environment. This has resulted into an increase in the global warming, and the natural resources reserves are diminishing all over the world. As people learned more and more about these facts owing to the immense universal rise in the literacy rate since the past few years, they have developed a sense of responsibility towards the environment. Ethics and ethical concepts like corporate social responsibility were never given as much importance as they are valued in the contemporary age. There has been a general discouragement and disliking for environment ruining businesses. As a result of this, modern day entrepreneurs face additional challenge of having to comply with the ethical standards in order to gain competitive advantage over their contemporaries in the market. Business ethics is a concept that is getting increasingly prominent in the current market scenario. It is a “buzz word” in the modern age corporations (Arrizza, 2009). This has also invited much debate owing to the conflict between the intrinsic nature of business and the ethical standards it is required to comply with. Business ethics is increasingly being taught in schools all over the world presently. Business theories that are conventionally taught explain the codes and moral values that should be implemented in the business so that the staff behaves in a manner acceptable to the society (Vitez, 2010). A vast majority of mentors teaching ethics in schools complain that the new generation visualizes business as a sole means of earning money. “The responses are so uniform that they make one think that the only purpose of business ethics is to give currency to the word “oxymoron”” (Duska, 2007). Discussion: In any kind of business, the owner makes cost and benefit analysis of his decision to know whether the cost incurred in taking the action surpasses or is less than the expected benefits. Interestingly, what is beneficial to an entrepreneur is often harmful for many others and vice versa. Few decades ago, the doyen of market economics, Milton Friedman overtly expressed the concerns of a businessman saying, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” (Friedman cited in mindfully.org, 2000). Business owners tend to measure the financial benefits of their decisions. Any attempt that is business driven is an attempt to maximize the profits. A successful business is often quite ignorant of the implications of the owners’ actions on the society at large. This can be attributed to the fact that the stakeholders affected by the businessman’s decisions often realize that their rights have been subdued or they have been harmed in any way much after the harm was actually caused. For example, as the technological era was gaining strength, more and more industries were being established. The establishment of factories and industries was seen as a sign of development. People were not educated much. The scientific research was also not quite mature and sufficient to judge the environmental impacts of the conventional practices that were in place. The factories discharged waste into the water, and polluted the air with chemical rich dust. No one actually estimated the dreadful impacts of such practices until global warming showed up in the form of a general rise in temperature, melting away of ice bergs and rise in the level of water in reservoirs. To top it all, the increase was seen not only in the level of water, but also in the extent of pollution in it. Although there was more water as a result of this, but potable water had declined considerably in volume. This resulted into tensions between nations because of the ownership of clear water resources. All of this took centuries to happen and today, we are aware of the implications of business practices that were in place decades ago. Similarly, there are many potential ways in which the seemingly wise and prudent approach adopted in a business still harms either the environment or the stakeholders. Despite the fact that the technological boom has caused a lot of damage to the environment, the benefits it has offered are inevitable. Only there should have been a more considerate approach to discharge the wastes if only pollution is considered. However, irrespective of what potential ways could be adopted to save the world from global warming, it would inevitably have resulted in some loss to the environment. There is no approach that could have promised 100% benefit and 0% loss. Such an approach is not realistic and practicable, though the effects could have been minimized. Business ethics requires business entrepreneurs to also consider and respect the interests of stakeholders in addition to the financial benefits expected from a certain action. However, complete safety can not be ensured. There are knowledge constraints even if the entrepreneurs are totally willing to safeguard the interests and rights of the stakeholders while making decisions. If we look at the matter from a critical perspective, many companies actually display a lot of ethics in their dealing with the customers. For example, there are many customers who purchase a piece of cloth one day and return on the next day for any reason. The customer might have seen a better piece on some other shop, he/she might have found it unfitting or he/she might have discovered a defect in the cloth. There can be many other reasons. There are many shopkeepers who do accept to replace the previously bought piece with a new one. There are others, who even accept to take the piece back and return the money, though this is a clear favor from the shopkeeper that a customer is not normally entitled to. This way, companies take care of the ethics of customers in particular, and the society in general. Also, shopkeepers display immense patience towards arrogant customers in order to maintain their image. Many a times, customers make undue use of their freedom and loathe an employee through criticism and insult, yet employees are hardly ever in a position to retaliate because their job is at stake. Businesses ought to be considerate and careful with regard to ethics since they form an integral part of the socioeconomic system. Aristotle said, “A person without ethics is more of a wild beast than a human being” (Koehn, n.d.). It is every individual’s right to be dealt with care and reverence. In the contemporary age, businessmen are taken to charge upon display of unethical act. People have a right to sue them if they have solid reason for doing so (Crystal, 2010) which essentially means that, more people have started to believe that ethics can be maintained in business. However, it is not just the law respecting which, businessmen tend not to be unethical in their practices, another major factor that motivates them to respect the laws of ethics is the social prestige. Companies have a fear of embarrassment that they can be offered by the media and NGOs in case their unethical side is revealed. In the modern age, many companies have established their outlets in more than one country. This being the case, in the CNN world of today, when one branch is caught indulged in unethical practices, the effects do not respect the boundaries and the whole setup throughout the world is threatened. Also, many large companies are owned by government officials. In their attempt to vie with one another, people tend to criticize the business practices prevalent in companies belonging to the opponents, and ethics is fundamentally, the focus of discussion in such cases. One such example is Shell that happened to suffer from two major blows in 1995. First because it made an attempt to dispose the rig of Brent Spar oil into the North Sea, while the second blow was given because Shell did not adequately protest against the punishment offered to Ken Saro-Wiwa by the government of Nigeria, when Saro-Wiwa was working for human rights in that region of Nigeria in which Shell used to conduct heavy operations (mindfully.org, 2000). Many people are of the view that it can not be said that a company does not follow ethics if it displays a certain unethical behavior. After all, “Ethics is learning what is right and what is wrong and then doing the “right thing.” (Hoover, 2008). Such an inconsistency can also be attributed to the fact that different people differ in their perception of moral standards depending upon their religion, upbringing, culture, trends and traditions (Pinto, 2010). Division between morals and ethics is very narrow. Not many people are aware of the difference, though there does exist a very basic difference. Morals belong to the personal character of an individual, whereas ethics necessitate realization of such a social system that would allow the morals to be applied (Kayne, 2011). The requirements of ethics also differ from business to business (Dye, 2010). Conclusion: A vast majority of people both owning a business and others mutually consent upon the idea that there is contradiction in the terms “business ethics”. There exists a clash between ethics and profitability. Businessmen have to compromise upon their profits in order to incorporate ethics into work. Having lost profit, the company lessens in value and managers have to resort to downsizing (Hinders, 2011). This proves that business and ethics are indeed, contradicting terms as far as the profitability is concerned. Nonetheless, the two should not be separated as ethical business is the demand of sustainable development. People who do own a business actually are completely aware of the fact that business ethics is indeed, a big issue. Successful business in the contemporary market scenario necessitates the display of ethics by those immediately related to it, i.e. workers and managers. Managers that cheat cause unrecoverable damage to a firm. Likewise, employees indulging in sexual harassment often incur the owners several million dollars. The company is susceptible to sues and legal fines upon complaint of unsatisfied and aggressive customers. Although the ultimate goal of running a business is enlarging profits, yet individuals finding ways to draw personal benefits give heavy blows to the sustainability of a business. There is no doubt in the fact that businesses seek to attain personal interests. They are run by people that pursue their individualistic interests in it. However, there is a lot of difference between being self-interested and self-centered. People’s conception about themselves broadens and widens as they grow up to become a more responsible member of the society. People are interconnected in a web of relations. Every individual wants to be thought of as a person of high social morals and integrity. It does not sound good if people are accused of cheating or fraud. This essentially means that a good sense of ethics is predominant in their intrinsic personalities. There is no point denying the fact that evil practices do exist. For example, there is a multi billion dollar industry of pornography, yet how many people have ever openly committed that they own or even belong to such an industry? Certainly as few as negligible! This tells that forces violating and disrespecting the laws of ethics do exist in the society all over the world, though they are not public. People hesitate to violate the principles of ethics openly because they know that the society retains a huge respect for ethics and wants it implied in the business. This, in turn, speaks of people’s expectations from business and the belief, that the present socioeconomic structure of the society can be maintained while incorporating laws of ethics into the conventional business practices. References: Arrizza, N 2009, Business Ethics: An Oxymoron, The English Magazine, viewed 6 January, 2011, . Crystal, G 2010, What is Business Ethics? viewed 6 January, 2011, . Duska, R 2007, Contemporary Reflections on Business Ethics, Issues in Business Ethics, Vol. 23, Part 1, 51-65, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-4984-2_3. Dye, F 2010, What Are Company Ethics? viewed 6 January, 2011, . Hinders, D 2011, What are Business Ethics? viewed 6 January, 2011, . Hoover, H 2008, Business Ethics: An Oxymoron? viewed 7 January, 2011, . Kayne, R 2011, What is the Difference Between Ethics and Morals? viewed 7 January, 2011, . Koehn, D n.d., Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron? viewed 7 January, 2011, . Mindfully.org 2000, Doing well by doing good: Is business ethics an oxymoron? The Economist, viewed 7 January, 2011, . Pinto, M 2010, Business Ethics - An Oxymoron? viewed 7 January, 2011, . Vitez, O 2010, What Are Basic Business Ethics Theories? viewed 7 January, 2011, . Read More