Ethical values

From CEOpedia | Management online

Ethical values are the basis on which people govern their behaviour. They are guides of behaviour, usually accepted in a social way and help to differentiate what is correct or not. An individual has certain ethical principles and, on the basis of them, acts in a certain way. Despite the fact that the list of values can be incalculable and always dependent on a person's attribution, there are some essential ethical values that need to be taken into consideration in society:

  • Freedom
  • Justice
  • Respect
  • Responsibility
  • Honesty

The purpose of this article is to understand the importance of ethical values in a business but it's also important to understand the general definition of them. We should know also that there are many fields in which ethical values can be applied. Business Ethical values are a set of moral guiding principles that determine how a company conducts business. These principles seek to serve and cover others above the association’s tone-interest. Beyond fulfilling legal scores, ethical values in a business show strong moral character from leaders and workers. We can describe Business Ethics as The study of proper business policies and practices regarding potentially controversial issues, such as corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination, corporate social responsibility, and fiduciary responsibilities. Therefore, business ethics comprise observing rules and moral values while doing business and guarding the legal rights of people, society, humanity, and companies including terrain as well. The safety at the plant is also part of it. The structure of business ethics is erected on integrity, honesty, trust, regulations, and the protection of the legal rights of all stakeholders. Utmost of the once studies on business ethics have been confined to observing laws and regulations, but substantially these didn't deal with the needs, prospects, and demands of communities and guests. The study of mores, honesty, and integrity has also been more frequently ignored. Companies need to be apprehensive that the price of adhering to business ethics is entered as increased stakeholders ’ confidence, enhanced productivity, retaining a quality pool, guarding client trust, bettered effectiveness, etc... Business ethics have crossed public boundaries in the 21st century and have been globalised. Nowadays Business is forced, thanks to different organizations, to observe ethics otherwise they cannot survive. Business Management has been developed and facilitated in recent years thanks to new technologies, innovations, etc.. and it became very different from what it was before. Accompanied by this process of transformation there are also many issues related to ethical aspects. There are different types of business ethical values such as:

Application of ethical values

Ethics and ethical behaviour are aspects which are increasingly being focused in the business community today, in fact, people are becoming more sensitive about what is happening in business organizations. It’s proved that ethical values may help to create good relationships with other organizations and can also create positive relationships with potential future customers. For this reason, we can say that is very important to have a code of business ethics in every business organization. Every year many cases of unethical activities occur in business organizations, which is why some organizations are also worried. To fight this problem also universities in almost all the countries in the world are teaching business ethics because they believe that today’s students may become managers of different organizations in the future, so they should be aware of this important aspect starting from their student life. On the other hand governments of different countries are either preparing a code of business ethics in the way to implement it among employees in business organizations or associations. It is also possible for business organizations to prepare their business code but the best way remains the first one. A government should have a monitoring branch to monitor the implementation of ethical values and if needed to take legal actions against business organizations which do not implement this kind of code. We should know that unethical practices cause big problems and harm to stakeholders of business organizations. Also, the right implementation of business ethics in organizations can make more profits and can ensure the protection of stakeholders’ interests. However, we should remember that ethical values are changing in every country. The managers in a business can face different ethical aspects on different levels of an individual, organization/company, society/country, and over the world. According to Smith (2017), we can identify 3 different levels of ethical issues:

  1. macro level (related to the country and societal pressure);
  2. company level (all the people related to a specified business);
  3. individual level (all the people related to a specified business).

The first level can be also called the systematic level and includes the environment where a business is operating, like a region or a country. The second level includes the policies and procedures of the business/organization. The last one can be concerned with employees, vendors, contractors, etc… There are also other theories related to other Economists’ thoughts like Philips (2017) who spotted 4 different levels related to ethical issues more concerned with The Issuance of law, Framing internal policies by companies, obeying laws and policies by individuals and the consequences of ignoring and breaking laws and policies.

Conclutions of the article

This article has linked that ethical practices and the proper perpetration of ethical practices are veritably important for organizational goodwill. It is also conspicuous that an ethical association’s workers are more satisfied and pious to the company than those of an unethical one. With strong ethical enforcement, companies can make long-term profitable relationships with their stakeholders. On the other hand, we should know that is not possible to completely remove all unethical practices but is possible to minimize them. The reason could be individuated in the wrong implementation of ethical aspects. It is significant to have a code of business ethics for every company and managers must borrow applicable means to implement the contents of that code of business ethics. Proper perpetration of business ethics can ensure the satisfaction of all stakeholders of the business organization.


Ethical values — recommended articles
Importance of business ethics — Ethical factors affecting business — Crisis of work - the overcome — Corporate policy — Accounting fraud — Ethical issue — Death from overwork — Workplace safety — Mary Parker Follett

References

Author: Nicholas Acquaviva

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