Accounting, Society and Environment - Research Proposal Example

Accounting, Society and Enviroment By: [Pick the This paper will shed some light on the already and excessively debated topic of the use of ethics in business environment. The paper will comprehensively lay out the actual meaning of the term ‘ethics’ and apply it to the corporate world. For the purpose, this scribe has studied five academic papers and a number of other resources that the readers will find as they follow the paper along, and has derived his own views in the light of these papers. The paper successfully attempts at helping the reader in understanding the importance of ethics in the business world and suggests some alternate solutions – such as ethics education in business schools – to make ethics a stronger part of the corporate environment. Keywords: ethics, business ethics, professional framework, corporate ethics, ethics education Introduction A few years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart questioned a selected group of business people and asked them what did the term ethics meant to them. Surprisingly, what everybody replied was somehow similar in nature and not very close to the actual meaning of ethics. Most of them labeled ethics as feelings and beliefs about the right and the wrong; the lawful and the unlawful. Though these meanings stand true to a great extent, they still do not actually make the meaning of ethics crystal clear. This is because ethics is a very hard term to properly define and pen down. Ethics are two things. Firstly, as most of the people had responded: ethics are ideas and beliefs based on firm foundations and that lead to the human conscience being able to disconnect the right from the wrong. They are virtues that guide people what to refrain from, in order to build an orderly and a just society. Secondly, ethics involve the constant check of one’s ‘ethical’ beliefs in order to ensure that our values are based on solid reason. Be it an individual, a society or an organization, values and morals should be constantly updated in order to remain ethically standardized (Velasquez, 2010). When it comes to defining ethics in business, people will mostly mean one of these three ideas; (1) resist any illegal activity when it comes to work, (2) resist acts that might bring the organization in the limelight of civil suits, and (3) resist all those actions that bring a bad name to the organization ( Fieser). True, but that is not all to it. Fieser in his article argues that all businesses are especially concerned with these three ideas of ethics, since any violation of them can not only result in a bad repute but a serious loss of money. In order to curb these violations, Fieser suggests that organizations hire corporate attorneys and public relations experts who keep a constant eye on the duties of the employees and prevent their deviation from the routine tasks. Though a good idea to curb many mishaps, such measures will only more burden the expenses of the organization as huge salaries go out to these personnel. What can be more productive are lectures by philosophers who can give speeches to the employees on the importance of ethical morality. While such measures cannot guarantee a total change of employee behavior, they can help bring a change to some extent at the least. With the passage of time, ethics have emerged to be a very important aspect of the business. Without ethics, businesses cannot flourish and can deprive the organization of desired profits. Through all the major studies, a firm and symbiotic relationship has been established between business and ethics; good ethics result in good business. This makes the stance clearer that business and ethics are greatly linked (Cohen). Through this paper, we will closely study ethics and business; how are the two linked and how can companies make use of ethics in their everyday business. We will study professional frameworks to see what building blocks an organization builds itself on, and what role ethics can play in the overall framework of an organization. We will draw ideas from five different journals relating to the same subject and draw conclusions in the light of such ideas. Literature Review James Fieser in his paper went into a great degree of depth to dig out the role of ethical behavior in corporate environments. His article gave a thorough insight into the connection between the two, and tried at establishing a valid idea that good ethical behaviors in business environments lead to good business activities. Such ethics are not just limited to increasing profits but their involvement in business strategies lead to a productive work environment, and increase the customer support and employee satisfaction. Rania Ahmed Azmi, Assistant Lecturer at Alexandria University, in her paper ‘Business Ethics as Competitive Advantage for Companies in Globalization Era’ discusses the importance of similar business ethics. She argues that companies struggle towards stability and responsibility by incorporating economic, social and environmental codes of conduct into business strategies. With the world shrinking into a global village, the importance of such ethics has further increased as the interaction and competition with international organizations of different backgrounds and cultures has become unavoidable (Azmi, 2006). With the increasing importance of Business Ethics, one can no more chose to ignore it. When it comes to the international market, ethics become the foremost priority of every organization because the organization is at the stake of its repute. As such, companies need to take start from the grass root levels and paint the idea of ethics onto their employees. Once the inside of a company is painted the right way, the outer will eventually show up. Ethics program are one such tool that can help in increasing productivity not just within an organization but in inter-organizational relations (Commerce, 2004). They are an important source of competitive advantage to the organizations. Azmi argues that business ethics are also a source of competition amongst organizations. When organizations inculcate desirable ethical strategies in their professional framework, they make competition harder for other companies. Not being able to imitate the right strategies, the competitor looses ground and as a result the former organization rises above the levels of its competitors. With the increasing globalization, companies are growing more aware of such practices and that is making competition ever harder. Corporations are learning to exploit the different industry trends rather than ignoring them; business ethics being the most important one. Azmi concludes her paper with the implications that working towards competitive strategies and general corporate goals involve the application of business and corporate ethics. As such, organizations are bound to succeed. Employee’s role should not just be based on improving competition but on hard work and can-do attitudes, to get the best out of the job. Iraj Mahdavi of National University has her own idea to offer in her paper titled ‘International Business Ethics: Strategies and Responsibilities’. Her focus shifts from the contemporary discussion on the importance of ethics to the different strategies that can be used to cope with issues of ethical behavior in corporations, especially when it comes to business in the international market. The author believes that in order to bring ethical values to businesses, a global ethical code needs to be enforced by an international agreement in order to ensure a flourishing business (Mahdavi). With the removal of barriers in international trade as more and more firms seep through the national boundaries to gain access to international markets, the need for ethical behavior and social responsibility is further felt. For multinational companies, knowing ethical behaviors of culturally diverse societies is great but unfortunately not the only thing to this issue. Though such acquaintance will improve the business of the organization, they might not be the sole guidelines for suitable behavior. One of the major problems arises, when companies wish to implement ethical standards in their organization; how can such ethical values be effectively communicated to the employees? Through thorough investigation, the results show that the American model of ethical values is one of the most productive means of eliminating unethical behaviors from organizations. If such a model is imitated, it can curb many ethical problems to a great extent. Mahdavi attempts at separating the knots of Ethical Climate and Ethical Problems. Ethical climate is a broader concept of a culture and not totally similar to the concept of culture itself. Through a survey of 1078 human resource managers, a relationship between the two was tried to establish. The results indicated that there was negative relationship between the strength of an organization’s ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations; and a positive relationship between an organization’s ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues (Bartels, 1998). As Fieser and Azmi had also argued, Mahadvi concludes that due to the constant globalization companies are no longer limited to professional frameworks that only involve regional and national values being considered. Due to the ever growing business, no organization can ignore the larger picture of business and thus had to take into consideration the ethical values on an international level. This, Mahadvi states, is important to a flourishing business. Stephen Cohen’s article, ‘Good Ethics is Good Business’ sheds another view on the relationship between ethics and businesses. As is popularly known that good ethics will bring in good business, the statement is not totally reliable. Though Cohen argues that ethical values add to the business but good business does not mean it has been built upon good ethical values. The two are linked to each other, but not to a very great degree. Stephen Cohen represents a web of views pertaining to the involvement of ethics in business. Rather than limiting one’s view to a blunt ‘yes’ or ‘no’, Cohen argues that there are more subtle and underlying facts that connect ethics to business. The idea that ethical values are important to businesses needs to be justified; if good ethics mean good business, then to what extent? Similarly if ethics has no role to play in good businesses; why? We’ll look more deeply into the idea he provides and compare and contrast with those we have looked at earlier. In businesses there are two separate concerns; first, the coincidence of good ethics and good business; and second, reasons for behaving ethically (Cohen, 1999). For the first concern, business and ethics should coincide because of their essential link; and for the second, ethical behaviors are for one’s own self-interest. As had been argued in previous papers that how are ethical values be transmitted to the employees, the very fact of making them acknowledge that it is for their own benefit is enough to bring a significant change. Cohen relates the issue of business and ethics to that of law and ethics. To make matters clearer, we’ll bring into consideration the situation of individuals and interpersonal relations in link to businesses. As law cannot cover the entire area of ethical issues, similarly businesses cannot curb the entire problems of ethical behaviors. For those who argue that businesses are covered by law, one should not forget to ask why situations for businesses be regarded as different from that of individuals. As a matter of fact, they should not be regarded as different at all. The most important reason that good ethics make good business is that it promotes ethical behavior and creates a trustworthy corporate environment. As argued by Rania Ahmed Azmi that competitive advantage is imperative for every organization, but it is limited by the fact that competitive advantage strategies are difficult to imitate (Schoeman). To conclude, Cohen states that ethical behavior is pertinent to achieving anything and without them organizations cannot flourish. We have had shed enough light on the importance of ethics in corporate environments. What we have learned so far is that business ethics is the study of how personal and moral norms apply to the activities within corporate. As a result, the employees of such organizations have a chance to set their moral levels accordingly in order to become a functional part of the organization (Heller, 2011). What surpasses beyond the importance of ethics is the education on ethics. Nathan Heller, from the Tarleton State University, in his paper ‘Business Ethics Education: Are Business Schools Teaching to the AACSB Ethics Education Task Force Recommendations?’ talks about similar issues of education and ethics (Heller, 2011). Business schools should encourage students to develop a thorough understanding of the responsibilities regarding the corporate worlds; equip them with tools to deal with ethical issues, personally as well as within organizations; and provide them real-time problems as mock tests (International, 2004). Such measures will strengthen the value of ethics in businesses and work towards empowerment of organizations. Ethics education is now far more universal as many acknowledge the relevance of it in corporations and call on business schools to do a better job of it (Hooker, 2004). Heller argues on the importance of ethical education, stating that ethical values in any field are a result of basic education on ethics - the understanding of the right and the wrong – which cannot be gained without proper knowledge. All business schools should press on the importance of ethics and make it a part of their curricula. Since no one can deny the importance of ethical framework in organizations, we need to brush the grass roots of such facets and start teaching students on the importance of ethics in real time corporate environments. Methodology With the importance of ethics in work environment established, we need to define a route that can help in paving the way towards standardized ethical environments in organizations. Through the many papers that we studied closely, almost every researcher had an option to give, to make ethics a part of the organizational infrastructure. With Rania Ahmed Azmi suggesting Ethics Programs that can teach employees on the importance of ethical values, and Nathan Heller enforcing the importance of education on ethics in business schools, we cannot deny the importance the term ethics itself holds. Though several studies have been conducted on the importance of business ethics, the methodology of such studies cannot be fully trusted. For quite some years there has been a thorough debate between philosophers and social scientists over the proper methodology of applied ethics in business. Social scientists have widely defended empirical methodologies, criticizing philosophers as preoccupied by idealized normative considerations (Werhane, 1994). Nevertheless, whatever methodology may be chosen, the very fact that ethics and business cannot be separated leads to a serious consideration required by the issue. Limitations of Research Limitations of Research are those factors of methodology that influence the results of a study (Library, 2013). Though we do not have concrete studies on hand to define the limitations of the researches that have been done on ethics and businesses, but we certainly cannot deny the fact that every study has its shortcomings. Be it interviews, surveys or observations, every methodology will have its shortcomings. In organizational environments, employees cannot be totally trusted when discussing intimate issues such as their ethical values. No employee will ever let a negative image of his self show off as it might bring him into the limelight. Such surveys are always bound by such limitations and often lead to incorrect data being collected. If the students, as in Heller’s paper, were studied for empirical behaviors they are never bound to give real world results. Laboratories and work environments differ greatly and scientists cannot even fully trust the data that come from such empirical studies. Nevertheless, such studies can help in giving an idea of the actual work environments. Conclusion Through the close and thorough study of several papers and journals, we can suitably conclude that ethical values are of significant importance to every organization. As more and more firms reach international market, the need for ethical understanding has further increased. If ethical values were extradicted from an organization’s working, we would have experienced a complete disorder. For an organization to have a professional framework of ethical values, the need to communicate ethical behavior at organizational and individual levels and at business schools is important. Without the knowledge of proper ethical behavior and its consequences, no organization can fully meet its goals. 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