Business Ethics: Does Business Ethics Exist?

Fund embezzlement, employee assault, intended false advertising, fraud, are just a few in many unethical practices in the market place since a long time ago. This raises a question: Does business ethics really exists? Of course, does exist given that each one of every company is given an ethical conduct of some sort, and all required to submit Social Responsibilities Report at the end of every year. However, business ethics is different, because it is more twisted in the market place. It is usually not taken very seriously and even sometimes changed to fit certain situations, such as it is not “right” for the employee to go around and talk about how his or her CEOs or coworkers are cheating with accounts. In the “business world”, there are …show more content…
Thus, we often see articles about how companies covered up their soon-to-be scandals, how companies assured citizens but ended up hurting the environment (chemical companies and their wastes), and fraud among executives like the ENRON scandal. The ENRON scandal was a big event in American economy history, because such large energy company was doing illegal practices, from the executives to employees, no one said anything before it was revealed. There must be employees who knew about the executives’ action and were against it, but because of loyalty and they were afraid to be fired, what they could have done was limited, and this is just one example among many. In result, to prevent such big problems from happening, companies must guide their members in an ethically way. As Daryl Koehn, author of the article “Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron?”, wrote:
“In more general terms, businesses must care about ethics because businesses are part of a human community. Communities are held together by virtues and sound mores. As Aristotle puts it, a person without ethics is more of a wild beast than a human being. We all want to be treated with respect and care. We want to feel we can trust each other. Indeed, it is hard to envision how we could perform routine tasks, much less do business, …show more content…
There is no deny that ethical practices have many advantages, but it is more significant when the desire is for ethics itself, not its effects. Businesses should always encourage and offer ethical guidance for managers and employees, simply because it is the right thing to do. Overtime when this becomes a habit for businesses, maybe the market place will not be as corrupted. In the end, doing good because it is good is essential for any human beings, regardless of their jobs, characters, or where they are from. Two authors Scott Rae and Kenman Wong also quoted from their interviewees in their text “Beyond Integrity” on their opinions about what if honesty does not pay, and one answer reflects the importance of ethics over profits : “Is that important? They may be rich in dollars and very poor in their own sense of values and what life is about I cannot judge anybody by the dollars. I judge them by their deeds and how they react.” (Rae, Wong