To What Extent Is Creativity an Essential Aspect of Morally Fine Behaviour - Essay Example

Here Here Your Here January 5, 2007 To What Extent is Creativity an Essential Aspect of Morally Fine Behaviour? Intoday’s diverse and complicated business environment, ethical behaviours and procedures are often at the forefront of the social consciousness. From a stakeholder perspective, ethics involve ensuring a quality work environment and a workplace which is free of discrimination, prejudice and one which embraces diversity. At the same time, within companies where staff members are responsible for contributing to marketing objectives, notions of personal creativity often dictate the success or failure of various promotions and corporate advertising. Further, creativity is required in many other aspects of business, from policy creation to creating interpersonal social harmony within the business environment. With these notions in mind, creativity is an essential element of successful and ethical business practices. Creativity is evident in most contemporary businesses, from the marketing-focused organisation to the more abstract business type such as entrepreneurial art production. Hence, with the need for creativity in the workplace, issues of ethics are closely linked, as concepts of integrity in advertising and in providing fair and honest internal processes mandate morally fine behaviour on behalf of the leader or subordinate worker. In capitalistic economies, business practices are a common theme as the outcomes of performing profitable activities serves to sustain the regional economy. According to one professional author who explores the philosophical elements of business ethics, “the true moral strength of capitalism lies in its promotion of human creativity” (Novak, 977). The author is attempting to illustrate that the human contribution to business involves maintaining an adaptable and flexible mentality, which involves performing in competitive environments through the use of creative ingenuity. Such ingenuity takes shape in practices from human resources (people management) and in creating new and innovative marketing materials which are designed to appeal to the potential customer and the general public. Hence, if a business desires to act in a morally-sound fashion, all creative elements produced by the business participant involves ensuring that no unethical behaviours occur. For instance, consider an organisation which produces ongoing promotional and advertising literature. This organization must consider issues of copyright infringement, from a legal compliance perspective, and ensuring that no misleading or false advertising statements or phrases are produced (Boone & Kurtz, 552-553). To do so often creates media and social backlash, and can serve to jeopardise revenues when marketers are exposed for their deception, which can stain the reputation of the firm. At the same time, businesses are often considering potential methods to outperform their competition, especially when both business entities maintain similar products on the consumer market. Hence, an advertising employee who uses creative visual imagery as part of a marketing focus must ensure that they do not tarnish the reputation of competitors or create promotional materials which border on infringing of the intellectual property rights of competitors. In essence, a marketing entity must establish their own, unique creative promotional materials which rely on personal or executive integrity as part of the ethical program for fair competition. From a consumer perspective, such creative advertising efforts must avoid the use of puffery, which is defined as exaggerated claims of one product’s superiority over another using subjective or vague statements which are usually not completely true (Boone & Kurtz, 544-545). For instance, if a business created appliances which were designed to function for only a specific period of time, perhaps three years, their advertising should not illustrate high performance machinery nor include phrases which indicate guarantees of longevity. From an ethical perspective, this not only misleads customers, but could cost the company considerable financial woes as they are forced to make monetary restitution for consumers who establish class-action lawsuits for false advertising claims. The aforementioned scenario might have included very unique and creative illustrations and visual imagery, which would likely be applauded by virtually any organisational leadership. However, with the insertion of false promotional claims about the product’s longevity, creativity has essentially turned sour, potentially undermining the long-term financial future of the appliance company. Though, if leadership at the company turned the proverbial blind eye to the product puffery, they may experience short-term revenue streams based on initial sales volumes. It might be years later when the impact of the deception is felt, and now the company has allowed marketing creativity, once heralded, to be their ethical downfall. In the world of creative artistry, many entrepreneurial artists use a wide variety of materials to create high-dollar abstract sculptures or displays. The tangible creation and sale of these artistic pieces constitutes a business, where ethical and morally-sound behaviours must be an everyday element of business practice. A recent situation was identified by one notable author in which a creative artist was accused of reproducing the work of another artist, however attempts were made in the art construction to mask the ownership of an already branded piece of merchandise. In this situation, the artist purchased a trademarked shovel from a local hardware store and hung the piece of merchandise on the wall of an art gallery, labeling the piece In Advance of the Broken Arm? (Lewis, 10). This artist was attempting to utilize his own creativity to produce what he likely considered a masterpiece of abstract artistry. However, since the item used in the gallery exhibit was the trademarked property of a shovel manufacturer, the artist manipulated creativity and supplied the art community with an unethical piece of work, all in the pursuit of making a profit. Had the artist exhibited morally fine behaviour, the item used in the exhibit would have been replaced with an original item so as to avoid business outcry and legalities. An additional perspective which highlights the importance of creativity in ethical business involves the interaction between management and the subordinate employee. There are abundant theories in place which discuss modern methods at motivating workers, using a variety of methods from positive feedback to supplying rewards for positive contribution within the business (Nickels, McHugh & McHugh, 342; Mathis & Jackson, 361). If performed correctly, employees can be motivated without infringing on ethical processes through the use of setting performance targets or yearly performance appraisals. However, consider a situation in which a manager has tried traditional methods to boost staff motivation but has failed. Such a scenario would entail using new and creative methods to reach corporate objectives. Assume for a moment that this manager discovered that the majority of his or her employees placed significant value on the interpersonal relationship in relation to coworker friendships. As a hypothetical creative policy, this manager may begin throwing lavish parties at their home, inviting subordinates to partake in the social events. If, during the course of ongoing offsite celebrations this manager allowed employees to consume alcohol and the partying became a hindrance to the productivity during business hours, this manager has used their own creative ingenuity to boost motivation, but has seriously impacted the stability of their own leadership role and the operational process of the business. The aforementioned scenario may appear to be somewhat radical, however it does tend to illustrate that even the best-intended creative policies within a business can have long-term negative outcomes. Senior management would likely look upon the manager’s creative methods of boosting motivation and consider it to be highly unethical for ongoing fraternisation with subordinates, worrying about the potential legal ramifications in the event of issues associated with off-site celebratory activities. Thus, the manager responsible for creative motivational processes has exhibited somewhat immoral practices which could serve to jeopardise the position of the company. One large-scale company, Paddock Laboratories, Inc., issued their own statement of ethics which cites, “We encourage people to express and be receptive to new ideas, offer innovative solutions, and challenge the existing practices of the organisation” (Paddock). From a practical business perspective, this is likely the objective of many firms which are continuously looking for new methods to remain competitive in difficult business environments. However, at what point does creativity begin to infringe on moral behaviours? At the same time, who should be responsible for determining the point where innovation and creativity becomes unethical? Society is the largest judge of what constitutes unethical behaviours in business, which is apparent with the notion of contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR). Hence, businesses must actively monitor the creative processes of their staff members to ensure that the needs of the customer, government, regional society, and the business itself are protected (Ethics World). Creativity is a foundational aspect of modern, successful businesses, however when creative activities begin to erode the reputation of the company or jeopardise the stability of remaining profitable and competitive, new policies of what constitutes moral behaviours must be identified and implemented. This suggests that high-level leadership must routinely scan the organisational environment to identify unethical business practices and work consistently at ensuring that creative contributions to satisfying corporate objectives avoid issues of rights infringement. Failure to do so will likely label a firm as morally unsound, making whatever creative contributions they provide for future business growth to be essentially without long-term value. Bibliography Boone, Luis & David Kurtz. (2006). Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. United Kingdom: Thompson South-Western. Boone, Luis & David Kurtz. (2007). Contemporary Marketing. 13th ed. United Kingdom: Thompson South-Western. Ethics World. “Best Corporate Practices”. Retrieved 2 Jan 2008 from Lewis, Robert. (25 Oct 1999). “The art world goes on the attack”. Maclean’s: 10. Mathis, Robert & James Jackson. Human Resource Management. 10th ed. Thomson South-Western, 2005. Nickels, William G., James M. McHugh & Susan McHugh. (2005) Understanding Business. 7th ed. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Novak, Michael. (1993). ‘The creative person’. Journal of Business Ethics. 12: 10. Paddock, Bruce G. “Standards of Business Conduct and Ethics: Your Everyday Guide to Business Conduct”. Retrieved 2 Jan 2008 from Read More