Procurement Integrity

ETHICS AND PROCUREMENT INTEGRITY

Abstract

Insider trading, illegal campaign contributions, bribery, and kickbacks, famous court cases, and other scandals have created apperception that business leaders and government officials use illegal means to gain a competitive advantage, increase profits, or improve their personal positions. Lack of business ethics and or ethical conduct continues to perpetuate this belief of our businesses and our government. This paper will define ethics (business ethics and government ethics); explain why they are important to aspect of today’s businesses and government. It will also take a look at how lack of ethics affects not only the big business and government, but the little people who suffer the most.

A series of major scandals involving companies such as Enron, Tyco International, World Comm, Rite Aid and our own United States Government have raised deep concerns about ethics in business and government. The managers and companies involved in these scandals have suffered mightily—from huge fines to jail terms and financial collapse. What was at the root cause of these scandals?—Ethics and ethical behavior. What is ethical behavior and why is it so important? Does it consist of just being nice? Does it mean doing the “right thing” every now and then or “most of the time? Does it mean using doing those things that you can profit from?

Ethics is most simply defined by Miriam Webster as “The body of moral principles or values governing or distinctive of a particular culture. Business ethics is defined as behavior that a business adheres to in its daily dealings with the world. They apply not only to how the business interacts with the world at large, but also to their one-on-one dealings with a single customer. Government ethics is a system of laws and procedures which tend to ensure that official government decisions are informed by the public interest and not corrupted by private interests.

”. Ethical behavior is...