Business ethics or ethics in business?

Résumé du document

Ethics is concerned with the code of values and principles that enable a person to choose between the right and the wrong and therefore select among alternative courses of action. The business world is also concerned about it. In the current scenario a large number of international, national and even local companies are faced with issues related to ethics. Indeed, the corporate social responsibility has become inevitable for both organizations and societies. This concept can be defined as a managerial obligation to assume social responsibilities. In other words, this term explains that corporations should be managed for the benefits of their stakeholders. The stakeholders are the individuals and groups who are directly or indirectly affected by organization's decisions (Wolff, 1994 cited in Certo, 2005). Therefore, a number of business specialists claim that, to gain competitive advantage, companies should conduct business in an ethical way and demonstrate social responsibility to a fair extent. However, there are some controversies about whether such an involvement is necessary or even appropriate because of the dilemma involved in ethics.

Extraits

[...] Firstly, social relativism claims that every individual refers to social norms to choose if actions are ethical or unethical. It can be used by companies which work in countries where bribes are common such as Nigeria and accept it because it is useful in this country. Secondly, universalism claims that some unethical actions cannot be always condonable because organisations are not always in their control. Moreover, there are some operational barriers against the global corporate social responsibility. For instance, corporate social responsibility holds that companies have to certify the safety of their products but a traditional view of product responsibility claims that once the product is sold the safety on the product depends on the behaviour of the consumer (Hannagan 1998). [...]

[...] They advertise and do marketing about their ethical positioning. The more companies go toward the social responsiveness approach the more its ethic management become proactive. However, powerful organisations keep rejecting responsibility and resist to any change seen as disadvantageous, such as the American tobacco companies which prefer to pay for not being social responsible than to set up social responsibility strategies. Although lots of organisations are already involved in social responsibility activities there are still many disagreements about whether such involvement is useful or even appropriate. [...]

[...] In fact, the key issue of ethics dilemmas is that organisations have to think of the long-term benefits of an ethical behaviour. Moreover, companies have to involve their stakeholder in this approach, employees as well as stockholders or suppliers. Indeed, Bennis (1972 cited in Hannigan 1998) argues that companies organised in bureaucracy are too inflexible to settle a real long-term ethical approach because they do not involve their stakeholders. To conclude, nowadays, organisations are more and more aware of the necessity to have an ethical behaviour strategy. [...]

[...] Business ethics or ethics in business? Ethics is concerned with the code of values and principles that enable a person to choose between the right and the wrong and therefore select among alternative courses of action. The business world is also concerned about it. Nowadays, more and more international, national, or even local companies are faced to ethics issues. Indeed, the corporate social responsibility has become unavoidable for both organisations and societies. This concept can be defined as a managerial obligation to assume social responsibilities. [...]

[...] and Harris, K., (2001), Do consumers expect companies to be socially responsible? The impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on buying behaviour, Journal of Consumer Affairs 35, n°1(summer): 45-72. Pendell-Jones, A. (2005), TEOCO Corporation: successful ethics in a small company, Ethics Resource Center 2005-04. http://www.ethics.org/resources/article_detail.cfm?ID=873 (access 19 February 2006) Silbiger, S., (1999) The 10-Day MBA, London : Piatkus Books Limit. [...]