Ethics: A study of moral issues

Résumé du document

Nike exploited children to make their products: this is an unethical behavior. Nowadays, the business environment is extremely competitive and companies want to be more and more profitable. Employees in both small and large business can face difficult ethical dilemmas in South Africa as well as internationally.

According to the 2002 Transparency International corruption perception index listed Africa as the most corrupt continent.
To compete internationally and to have a better reputation, South Africa knows that every business, regardless of the size needs to provide knowledge and resources to help employees act ethically.

First of all, we have to define the terms ethics and ethical behavior. "Ethic concerns itself with what is good or right in human interaction" (Rossouw, 2002), ethics involves the study of moral issues and choices. This is one of the thousands of definitions of a field.

Jacobus and Lazenby define an ethical behavior as principles of conduct that distinguish between the wrong and the right behavior.
Even if this subject has been for long time a philosophical topic, the field of business ethics has been growing in recent years as both an academic course of study in business schools across the globe and as social behavior.

According to Goosen in her article, businesses have much to gain if they have a reputation of corporate governance based on ethical behavior. Indeed, they will be able to attract investors from whom good corporate governance is a major consideration as well as new customers and will be a preferred employer for people that perceive themselves as having the capacity to thrive in an ethical environment. That is why South African companies decided to improve ethical behavior in their organization.

Extraits

[...] Size of the company The size of an organization can impact on employees' ethical behaviour. Indeed, Rossouw & Van Vuuren (2004) recognises that in a small sized organization, it should be easier to have an ethical climate. Indeed, it will be easier for the CEO to manage and control his employees' ethical behaviours than in a big sized organization. The opportunity for undetected or undesired unethical behaviour increases as the organisation become larger. We used to say that the more complex is an organisation, the more complex is the communication. [...]

[...] Executive Summary Ethics involves the study of moral issues. Nowadays, business ethics is a key element in organisation all over the world. Organisations encourage their employees to act more and more ethically. To influence them, they use different tools in the organisation. Ethical codes must be very well communicated and well understood by the organisation's employees in order to be effective. However, these codes are hard to institutionalise. That is why, organisational culture plays a large part in ethical behaviour. [...]

[...] Journal of Management 18 pp 63-78 Namara,T International Strategy. ESC Rennes, School of Business. France, Rennes. ►Minday,D. Organizational behavior. Esc Rennes School of Buisness Mutual South Africa, Codes of ethics,[Online], Available from http://www.oldmutualanonymousreports.co.za/default1.aspx ►Nilles,J-J Ethique des achats. L'école supérieure des Affaires. France. Grenoble. ►Ramaphosa,C Swords into ploughshares. International Journal of Public SectoR Management pp 17-24 ►Rossouw, GJ.1997. [...]

[...] Another aspect has to be study above all in South Africa. In big sized companies, the managing diversity, the cultural differences are likely to be more important than in small sized companies. Employees can have different points of view about ethical behaviours due to their national culture or personality. These elements complicate the challenge of improving ethical climate in the South African organization. To be profitable and to compete with the market, big size companies are most likely to use unethical practices because of huge competition and the low possibility to gain market shares. [...]

[...] We will also study how to improve the ethical climate in South African organisations. Literature study 2.1 Internal organisational influences Ethical codes The trend of ethics is a new concept and sometimes this principle is not clearly written down in the organisational culture. For this reason companies also decided to create ethical codes as the company Old Mutual in South Africa. Every South African organization should have a code of conduct also called a code of ethics; it is the first step to encourage employees to be more ethical. [...]