Essay About Business Ethics

Essay on Business Ethics

Business ethics represents all the principles and standards that guide behaviour in the world of business. Therefore, all this set of principles applies in any of the fields of business (marketing, finance...) and people inevitably face ethical decisions in their every day working lives.

The aim is to make every employee adhere to these standards because obviously, it is more profitable for a company to be ethical in business. But, as ethical issues are linked to decision-making, how can all decisions be ethical and above all whose responsibility is it?

Therefore, we could wonder if business ethics is a personal responsibility or a group responsibility. We are going to divide this essay into two parts, the thesis and the antithesis, in order to determine whether or not business ethics is a personal responsibility.

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Values are very important as they are the core of our culture. However, people tend to separate ethics in business and in personal life even if both are closely linked. Actually, your principles in business should be the same as in life. But, people often think that business is business and personal life is personal life, so they do not think that business ethics affects one's personal character. People are focused on their interests and as they have different goals from the company, it could leads to unethical decisions. Then, business ethics is a personal responsibility.

In addition, we have to consider that in every group, rules and ethical behaviours are established as a reference. A group norm is essential for any human even in companies. This means that, among a company, you will find sub-groups that may have a different notion of business ethics than the company itself. It is people responsibility to define what is ethical in their view of business. For instance, a top-executive would consider unethical to use the company phone for personal use although an employee would think that it is not a big deal if we take into account the phone bill of the organisation.

In decentralised organisations, the power is decentralised so the decision-making authority is delegated as down as possible in the hierarchy. Since there are few formal rules and control over the employees, the level of ethics is mainly determined by individuals. That is due to the fact that the notion of leadership is impoverished as every body has power among the organisation. It is more difficult to motivate others, enforce laws in the organization for instance. Leadership influences decision-making but the structure of the organisation plays an important role in leadership.

On the other hand, business ethics and social responsibility are closely related. Actually, social responsibility refers to the company's