Business Ethics Concept
Even though it’s not identical, business ethics concept (or management ethics) emerges strictly related with the organizations social responsibilities concept. Ethics can be considered as a group of values and social rules that distinguish what is right from what is wrong, being, indicate when a behavior is socially accepted or not. By other words, an ethics performance means more than respect the society’s moral principles. These moral principles form general behavior rules of great significance for the society that cannot be established or changed by the decisions of isolated individuals or by the established powers. In the entrepreneurial plan, ethics has to do with the management decision taking, this is, which the choices made by the managers face to an options diversity, having morality as background.
It’s an evident fact that the organizations contribute for the well being of people through the management quality by the simple fact of seeking to achieve their pre-determined goals. But it’s also necessary take into account that exist numerous situations in which the organizations’ interests are different from the society’s interests, taking, sometimes, to less ethic performances. In fact, the lack of ethic situations are originated, in most cases, by the incompatibility between the organization’s interests and its members personal interests or between the self organization’s interests and those of the society. These situations occur generally when it’s attempted to reach benefits, financial or others, in short term, at “any price” and by any means (even illegal, illicit or unfair), when the organizations resources are used for self benefit or when are not performed the duties or tasks that were supposed to be performed, among many other situations.
Even though there is a great quantity of legislation that seeks to avoid many of the situations considered as non ethic, it’s impossible for the legislator to prevent all of the possible situations, beyond that would be falling into a hipper-legislation situation. For that, many organizations, business or not, prepare their own conduct and ethic codes at which are obliged its members as a way to fill some of those legislation gaps, namely for some specific situations of the context in which they are inserted and the activities that they develop. Still with the same goal of filling legislation gaps and address specific questions of each activity sector emerge the deontological and ethic codes generally created by employers, professional, sectorial and regional codes that force their associates to respect certain rules and ethic conduct.
Nevertheless, an ethic conduct is only possible if each one of its intervenients work in this sense, particularly not placing their personal interests in front of the interests of the organization and the society which will be easier from the moment that the managers realize that this conduct also provides profitability and financial gains.
