Discuss about the Analyses And Evaluation Of Various Codes Of Ethics In Business Environment.
The report here discusses about the business ethics in global environment. The report here defines ethics as the morality basis on which moral judgments, standards and rules of conduct not only addressed but also identified for a business. The report also discusses about the background with an elaboration on the need of the implementation of business ethics. Then is report also explains why at all ethics was needed in business. There is also analyses and evaluation various codes of ethics in business environment and the relation business holds with the stakeholders. There are also a personal reflections and implications for business practice in the report.
The evolution of business ethics has been a result of myriad changes occurring in business over time. The common way of determining the actual meaning of an upstanding citizen, an active participant, a decent individual and an excellent tool for some with good leadership skills is through Ethics (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). Therefore, ethics defined as the morality basis on which standards, moral judgments and rules of conduct not only addressed but also identified. In this regard, business ethics defined as ideals, standards and values responsible for guiding behavior in a business climate. Thus, in this context, most organizations define principles that are specific for outlining the pervasive boundaries of behavior that are absolute and all encompassing. Thus, in business, norms remain based on principles that gets social acceptance and based on accountability, trust and honor.
The issues faced by workers in the 1920s helped in drawing attention not only towards the harsh working conditions but also to the child labor laws (Mnookin & Weisberg, 2014). This was a period when capitalism was a concept that played a pivotal role in the evolvement of the business ethics. During this time, a progressive movement ensured citizens with the concept of living wage. The main aim of the movement was to persuade business for adopting policies that ensured allocation of sufficient income for the workers for fulfill their need for education, recreation, health and retirement.
Then again, the political and social movements of the 1960s are also responsible for bringing in major changes in the arena of business ethics (Crane & Matten, 2016). Things took a different turn in the 1980s when incidents like illegal contract practices, influential peddling, bribery, financial fraud and deceptive advertising were responsible for shaping the business ethics during this time.
The dawn of the 21st century led to the evolution of new issues that in turn helped in the evolution of the business ethics that looked after product safety, misconduct financially on a global platform, cybercrime, protection from intellectual theft of property and issues involving sustainability of products and organizations (Gunasekaran & Spalanzani, 2012).
Thus, today the ethical issues faced by leaders in a business culture mainly focuses on
In this context, one can say that ethics and laws are in control of two different domains. Thus, a law made for protection of public life whereas ethics meant to govern matters utterly private. Therefore, in other words, laws clearly reflect a set of rules enforced which everyone follows whereas ethics refers to personal view that is a reflection on how individual makes a choice for navigation of their life (Becker, 2012).
There was a time when business ethics management focused primarily on the management of behavior of the employees but now there is an increase in attention for the development and implementation of tools and techniques that are associated with the management of social responsibility from a broader perspective (Myers, 2013). These externally focused components have involved considering the demands of other stakeholders. The core areas where the management of business ethics might pose relevant include:
Codes of ethics are voluntary statements that not only commit industries and organizations but also professionals to specific actions, values and beliefs that are the reason behind appropriate ethical behavior in employees (Fu, 2014). There are however, four types of code of ethics for the corporate. These include professional code of ethics, corporate or organizational code of ethics, industry code of ethics, and programme or group code of ethics.
The role that organizational or corporate code of ethics holds includes (Bishop, 2013):
The roles that Professional Code of Ethics plays include (Matthews, 2012):
The role that Industry Code of Ethics plays includes (Ford & Richardson, 2013):
The role that Program or group code of ethics plays includes (Beeri et al., 2013):
There are certain programs or sub group of organizations who establish code of ethics for those taking part in their specific programs. For instance, this includes collaboration with business leaders from Japan, USA and Europe that contributed in the development of code of ethics globally.
With the rise of the multinational business, many organizations have found that code of ethics established in the home country may need to be remolded for the international operations. Thus to make the guidelines for domestic employees relevant and more applicable in the overseas context three principles should be implemented (Morel, 2015).
However, three key relationship attributes determine the perceived importance that stakeholders have. These are as follows:
Power: This refers to the perceived capacity of a stakeholder in influencing the action of the organization.
Urgency: The level to which stakeholder claims considered for immediate action
Legitimacy: Wherever the stakeholder’s actions considered desirable and appropriate by the organization
This has been general trend that the relationship that business and their stakeholders is confrontational in nature (Burchell & Cook, 2013). However, stakeholder’s relationships can take a different variety of forms that include:
Challenge: This refers to opposition or mutual conflict
One-way support: This relationship based on sponsorship
Sparring partners: This refers to periodic conflict, healthy conflict
Endorsement: This relationship type refers to paid and unpaid public approval such as labeling
Strategy dialogue: This refers relationship between partners through discussion over long-term issues
Project dialogue: This refers to discussion between partners for purposes that are specific
Joint venture or alliance: This refers to formal partnership that involves mutual commitment of resources.
There have however been problems with collaboration of stakeholders. These include resource intensity that is not only expensive but also time consuming as compared to the existing form of business decision-making (Angelstam et al., 2013). There is also culture clash that defines the different values and goals. Uncontrollability is also one of the key problems that crops up from stakeholder collaboration. Collaboration with the stakeholders also leads to cooptation that implies that do the stakeholders collaborate for real commitment or they do so for fulfilling their own selfish motives, the answer is not quite clear. With the collaboration of the stakeholders, there lies the problem of accountability in terms of responsibility, liability and enforcement. Thus, there must be different approaches that a business must adopt to become more performance oriented. They include assessing the ethical, social, environmental performance to make the business more sustainable.
According to my viewpoint, the present business world faces a constant challenge of maintaining a climate that is ethical while maintaining profitability and competitive. Thus, I believe that maintaining ethical behavior however reflects ways that remains consistent with business worldviews of moral values and principles. However, I can say that working as ethical business comes with its own benefits (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). This includes the ability of the business to not only keep and attract investors but also keep its customers and employees. In such cases, investors are also at peace of mind knowing that the company they have invested in promises to work in a responsible manner thereby giving them an assurance that their money will not go in waste. Moreover, I have seen that employees working for a company with strong business ethics are more confident that they do not have to work under conditions that involve any kind of unethical practices. Businesses performing with ethics are also in an advantageous condition from the point of view of customers, as they know that they are buying products and services from a company that knows to source materials in a responsible manner. In this context, I can draw in the example of Johnson and Johnson and the Tylenol case. On September 30, 1982, there was death of three people in the Chicago area from introduction of cyanide into the extra strong Tylenol capsules. However, there remained link between the death and the capsules that spread like wildfire and thus Johnson and Johnson notified, as they were the manufacturers of Tylenol (Berg & Robb, 2013).
Therefore, as an immediate course of action Johnson & Johnson ordered for an immediate recall of the Tylenol bottles. Thus according to me, from, ethical point of view the company did not want to lose its reputation and thus put public safety as the primary concern. As a company of refute, they kept the image of the company secondary compared to public safety. This made the incident a legendary one thereby becoming a future study in textbook as to how Johnson and Johnson handle tragedy. The decision was not only the most appropriate one from the ethical point of view but the company also applied skills in handling the aftermath of tragedy.
Thus, I believe that businesses that operate within ethical guidelines also have lesser risk for its poor performance. Such businesses also have lesser chances of finding themselves in breaching of one or multitude of laws that are concerned with required behavior. These include laws involving payment to regimes that are corrupt or policies related to environmental practice. I believe that just in case the company held in law breaching cases, not only fines imposed on the company but also its directors but also individual employees. Thus, reputation is one of the most important aspects for a company which is also the most difficult to build once lost. Thus, the company should uphold the promises and try to maintain them that are an important aspect in maintaining a company’s reputation. Therefore, I believe that businesses that do not follow any particular ethical code or carry out any kind of social responsibility do face wider consequences.
Conclusion
The report concludes by throwing a light on the personal reflections and implications of business practice from ethical point of view. The management discipline and business ethics is dependent on the quality management of the company. The managerial principle and values, which are the basics of the social responsibility values applied and discussed in the analysis. The cases discussed in the following report are of organizations that conducted their operation in the ethical way and experience a better position in the global market. In this context, the perfect example is that of Johnson and Johnson is whose effective handling of the Tylenol case helped it to maintain its reputation. The corporate social responsibility comes from the morale of doing business and that dependent on the values and mission that a company adapts while selling the products or services, known as social implication of business ethics. There is also analysis and evaluation done based on business ethics. The report also gives a background information and explanation of the business code of ethics.
References
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Becker, G. K. (Ed.). (2012). Ethics in business and society: Chinese and western perspectives. Springer Science & Business Media.
Beeri, I., Dayan, R., Vigoda-Gadot, E., & Werner, S. B. (2013). Advancing ethics in public organizations: The impact of an ethics program on employees’ perceptions and behaviors in a regional council. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(1), 59-78.
Berg, D. M., & Robb, S. (2013). Crisis Management and the” paradigm case. Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations II, 93.
Bishop, W. H. (2013). The role of ethics in 21st century organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 118(3), 635-637.
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Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Ford, R. C., & Richardson, W. D. (2013). Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature. In Citation classics from the Journal of Business Ethics (pp. 19-44). Springer Netherlands.
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Gunasekaran, A., & Spalanzani, A. (2012). Sustainability of manufacturing and services: Investigations for research and applications. International Journal of Production Economics, 140(1), 35-47.
Matthews, J. (2012). Role of professional organizations in advocating for the nursing profession. Online J Issues Nurs, 17(3).
Mnookin, R. H., & Weisberg, D. K. (2014). Child Family and State: Problems and Materials on Children and the Law. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Morel, N. (2015). Servants for the knowledge-based economy? The political economy of domestic services in Europe. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 22(2), 170-192.
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Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons.
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