Ethical Business

Can Ethical Behavior Really Exist in Business

Felisha Toney

OMM640: Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Instructor: Lisa Wallace

November 25, 2012

The topic I chose to discuss is “Can Ethical Behavior Really Exist in Business”.

This is a real interesting topic. In this paper I will discuss what is ethics, the ethical responsibility of a business and ways a business can stay ethical and be successful.

Ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on. It is important for a business to have a clear vision, mission and goal. In order to reach these sometimes being ethical is a decision that has to be made. In order to be successful and stay successful organizations need loyal consumers or employees.

Many feel that there aren’t any ethics in businesses. This is not true. There are some business feel like “doing right” is the right thing to do, but by what or who standards. Social responsibility is also an issue with businesses today.

Ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility can bring significant benefits to a business. For example, they may:

• Attract customers to the firm's products, thereby boosting sales and profits

• Make employees want to stay with the business, reduce labor turnover and therefore increase productivity

• Attract more employees wanting to work for the business, reduce recruitment costs and enable the company to get the most talented employees

• Attract investors and keep the company's share price high, thereby protecting the business from takeover.

Unethical behavior or a lack of corporate social responsibility, by comparison, may damage a firm's reputation and make it less appealing to stakeholders. Profits could fall as a result.

Reference

Businesscasestudies.co.uk