Business Ethics
Creating and sustaining an ethical corporation isn't as difficult as you might think; it's actually easier than some of the day-to-day business challenges you face.The keys to running an ethical company are accountability,honesty,and information transparency.
Corporations aren't ethical or evil in and of themselves--but people can be.So ethics must focus on you and the people you work with.Most people want to do the right thing,but organizational structure does not guarantee they will do the right thing,without meaning to or even knowing it.Structuring an ethical corporation makes the goal easier to achieve.
The challenge could not be more urgent.A substantial majority of people in China are dissatisfied with the social behavior of our corporations,say several recent news reports.Poor treatment of workers at home and abroad,products that don't perform as advertised,fake commodities,poor customer service,environmental pollution,to mention a few.
Responsible behavior is important to your business success,but let's not forget that you're in business--you're not out to solve the world's problems.So how do you balance the two?What does it mean to be ethical in business?
It simply requires that you follow your best moral instincts,even in areas that don't appear to involve moral issues,such as cost-benefit analyses.But while good ethics often equates to good business,sometimes it doesn't.Sometimes being truly ethical means giving up something you want in exchange for doing the right thing.That's why we worry about ethics in the first place--if it didn't cost us anything,everyone would be ethical all the time.