The Importance of Ethics to Sustainable Growth in Engineering Enterprise - Essay Example

The Importance of Ethics to Sustainable Growth in Engineering Enterprise Contents 3 Conclusion 4 Areas for Improvement 6 Suggestions for Future Research 7 Abstract An organisation is identified as a business identity where a group of people certified to act as a single body manage the whole company with the help of employees and different types of management committees with the sole aim of profit maximization. An employees’ performance can increase or diminish based on the environment of a corporate culture. Corporate culture widely focuses on ethics. Professional ethics are defined as the professionally adopted standards of business and personal behaviour, guiding principles and values. The organization set these guidelines for its workers. So, predefined policies that direct employees are represented through the organizational culture which gives them proper sense of direction to accomplish their targets. Ethical standards are also greatly appreciated by the consumers. It has been observed that customers are biased towards those companies who follow ethical code of conduct. Ethical standards also include implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in their production strategy. The paper here essentially emphasises on the importance that engineering companies are supposed to pay on their ethical practices. Since engineering companies produce goods that are directly consumed by the society, they bear high responsibility towards the community. The paper here has taken the help of both secondary and primary data for the completion of research work on two countries, the United Kingdom and China and compared their attitude towards implementing guidelines. The study started with a brief introduction and then literature review. Literature review examines various theories related to ethical standards and its practices along with its positive affects that it creates on the workplace. The next part is the methodology portion in which the data collection methods and the research approach have been widely discussed. The methodology also discusses about the primary research that comprises of open-ended questionnaire survey. It also explains the research instruments applied in the study. The research findings collect the secondary data on the basis of the 9 questions that are discussed in the methodology part. The analyses and comparison of the outcomes with respect to UK and China are done in the data analysis part. Conclusion The engineering sector broadly deals with factories, machines, plants and machineries (Kopnina and Blewitt, 2014). The engineers employed are responsible for a company’s production operations that include building cost efficient techniques of production, manufacturing high quality goods, innovating sophisticated technology, etc. (Trong Tuan, 2012). They are also given the responsibility of monitoring and solving problems and errors that occur so that production capacity of the company increases. This imply that high standard of ethics need to be practiced in this sector (Downey, Lucena and Mitcham, 2015). Another advantage that ethics provide is that it creates high brand image which helps a company to sustain growth. People believe that companies who strongly implement ethical code of conducts produce high stands products that are also eco-friendly. The community have grown conscious towards environmental degradation and global warming and they tend to support the companies who take steps towards protecting nature. This is viewed by many business bodies as an effective strategy of marketing (Elliott, 2015). The paper tries to find out the benefits of implementing ethics in the workplace. As a result, it also tries to identify the issues that are associated with lack of ethics (Blome and Paulraj, 2013). The company’s inability to properly formulate and implement the guidelines can cause huge loss, in terms of revenue and reputation, to the companies (Hair Jr, et al., 2015). The code of ethics of a company encompasses the principles that are expected to be followed by the employees as well as the management. These standards aim at guiding the behaviour and decision making of workers. It is believed that code of ethics positively impact employee’s work practices. However, the study also highlights that it is also important to improve personal ethics first. The engineering sector is a hazard prone industry where the safety and health of the workers are of utmost importance for the company (Harris Jr, et al., 2015). The purpose behind the project is to highlight the need for formulating ethical standards. It also aims at pointing out the techniques of formulating the practices and imparting them in the workplace. This includes various training programmes and workshops that are conducted by the organisations. It is important to make the employees aware of the rules and regulations of ethics (Hersh, et al., 2015). Some employees do not identify the importance of ethical standards. As a result, even if the companies try to implement the guidelines, it becomes impossible for the employees to completely adopt them thereby making this effort of the companies a failed one. This necessitates the company to educate stakeholders regarding the benefits that ethics carry. Effective communication system also plays a major role in providing the information regarding different training programmes undertaken by the companies (Wiengarten, Lo and Lam, 2015). To create an impact of the adopted ethical strategies, it is vital that the authority and the management follow the practise in reality. The training programmes are supported by collection of feedbacks of the participants in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the programmes and to identify the area where they need to be improved. Training programmes can also include open discussions among the workers. For the success of any programme, employees need to be motivated (Brandon, 2012). Hence, these programmes also aim at enhancing the motivational level of the workers. The advantage of implementing the programmes is that it also increases the confidence of the staff which enable them to report against the code violations (Kopnina and Blewitt, 2014). To investigate how engineering companies pay attention towards ethical standards and what are their attitudes towards ethical practises, UK and China have been considered. UK has been considered here to represent the western culture of workplace practices and China represents eastern culture of workplace ethics. This makes the comparison easy. It has been seen that engineering profession has great value in the UK (Elliott, 2015). Different governing bodies are highly associated with the functioning and building of guidelines in the country. Statistical evidence highlights the amount of pollutants emitted by the companies every year (Lanis and Richardson, 2015). The government of the UK is also highly active in implementing strong polices to control pollution which are emitted by the engineering companies. It also aims at enhancing the safety measures of the workers. Companies invest huge amount to impart knowledge and training to the workers. They have focussed on introducing ethical measures in supply chain management including the suppliers. UK has implemented high technology to monitor the ethical standards. The Corporate Governance Code is also helpful in setting out ethical codes of conduct and help companies in monitoring whether they are effectively applied in reality. Compliance officer is given the responsibility of managing conflicts between the ethical programmes and the revenue earnings of the firms. The engineers in the UK companies also believe that adopting the ethical policies has enhanced their productivity and as a result, it has increased the companies’ profit earnings (Idowu, Schmidpeter and Fifka, 2015). China’s economic development is based on the growth of its manufacturing sector which includes its construction business. Chinese government has been very active in monitoring the level of pollutants emitted by the companies. Therefore, it has enforced stringent policies to control noise, land, water and air pollution (Chang, Li and Lu, 2015). Companies in China implement ethical standards into three groups that help them building ethics among the employees as well as top executives. They have also devised formula document regarding the laws and policies. The transition phase of Chinese economy has slowed down the effectiveness of the ethical standards. However, the companies have been vigorously implementing the CSR strategies in their production (Islam and Kantor, 2005). They have also tried to execute anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws to maintain transparency in business. They have also structured unique system to monitor the performance of the companies in terms of professional ethics. The compliance programme aims at maintaining transparent and clear organisational functions so that companies can participate in fair trade practices in international market. This programme also has three phases which have elaborately discussed in the paper. They also have “three inspection system” to maintain high ethics in workplace. The Green Chief Officer is appointed to settle the dispute occurring between ethical standard and company’s profit strategies. Firms also intend to evaluate that ethics educationists are qualified enough to properly guide the employees. China’s employees highly appreciate ethical standards in the office which shows that they are aware of the positive effects it creates (Goodman, 2015). Areas for Improvement The project identifies the problems prevailing in the UK and China. The UK companies witness theft crimes. Theft has drastically affected the economic conditions of the companies. Companies have failed to successfully implement CSR strategies. This has created a negative image of most of the companies. CSR programmes should be implemented immediately by organisations (Pritchard and Englehardt, 2015). This is highly required to be executed in the companies both as an instrument to improve ethical standards and to enhance their marketing plans. Companies have faced problems in engaging suppliers in the training programmes. Proper workshops need to be conducted to increase their motivation level. As a result, this necessitates for an overall personal ethics development programme. This programme should also aim at eradicating all kind of illegal practices in the workplace (Tricker, 2015). China on the other hand lacks strong rules and regulations as a result of which they are unable to strongly enforce their ethical policies which are evident in the failure of the anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws (Zhu and Jesiek, 2015). They also lack in proper enforcement strategies which is the result of the existence of communism in the past. The main problem that companies face is the discrimination of migrant and female employees. This again disturbs the corporate culture thereby diminishing labour productivity. To minimise discrimination, companies here too need to implement personal ethics development programme and stringent policies that act against discrimination in the office (Zhu, Sarkis and Geng, 2005). Suggestions for Future Research The current research acts as a scope for future research activities. The findings identified through the current research may facilitate towards recognising novel research objectives which may thereby contribute positively towards enhancing organisational knowledge towards professional ethics. The research is important not only for literary purpose but also for the organisations who are aiming for long term sustainable growth. The mission of the research has been accomplished with the help of secondary and primary data. The interview conducted has given an in-depth understanding from employee’s point of view. It has also helped in giving us a clear picture about the different approaches of two entirely different countries. Different areas have been identified that needs to be developed and transformed. Chinese companies can adopt UK’s policies in implementing ethics effectively. 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