Business_Ethics

Business Ethics 2 When you are at work and you are faced with daily situations of right or wrong, you are dealing with business ethics. Business ethics examines ethical principals in business environments. When you are faced with ethical decisions you have to base them on your moral beliefs. How you know to go about situations you may be unfamiliar with, juggling with the pros and cons of what your decision making has affects on others, and working through your decision making regardless if its right or wrong. Business ethics deals with integrity, respect, honesty, and understanding. Your overall decision has affects on anyone and everyone connected to you in your business environment. Knowing and learning the basic ‘etiquettes’ of business ethics can have a huge affect on how your business is ran and whether it is or can become a more successful business in the future. In today’s world, we see many ethical issues affecting communities and businesses. I believe the top three ethical issues I see most common is; discrimination, dishonesty, and communication. In all businesses these three ethical issues can have a huge affect on if a business is overall success or not successful. You see discrimination everywhere you go and sometimes on a daily basis, from neighborhoods, to schools, and even workplaces. When you think of discrimination against individuals you think of the color of a person, you think of their religious beliefs, and you judge on their outer appearance from materialistic things. When I define discrimination I think of it being misunderstood, judged, and shallow. Because something is different from what you’re used to, some tend to think of the ‘unknown’ as being ‘bad’. I believe that diversity in a business is key to success for the future. When you have such a large diversity or people you get exposed to almost everything and everyone. People learn and Business Ethics 3 understand the differences from ethnicities, religions, cultures, and fashion. No personality is the same but everyone can find something in common with each other. The second issue I would like to address is dishonesty in a business, this can range from stealing from your business, both money and materials and even swindling both business partners and customers. Your reputation is very important when it comes to your business. Treating you business partners and employee’s right from the beginning by being honest and understanding can keep your reputation good and your partners happy. Being honest with high integrity and values can keep everyone on the right track. The last issue I would like to address is communication. Like many say in many situations, ‘communication is key to success.’ Regardless if you’re the CEO of the company, the middle manager, or the newly hired employee, everyone should be address with respect. Communication should happen with everyone no matter the rankings or chain of commands. Listening to what others have to say can really help build a great business. With unhappy employees their feelings can lead to destruction to a company’s reputation and vandalism, theft, and corruption could happen. Holding weekly meetings with all employees, having an ‘open door’ policy, and trusting each other can really help the atmosphere in a business, leaving less stress and chaos behind and working in a more peaceful environment. Business Ethics 4 Business ethics can be affected by all sources of a business. With one bad ethical decision, a line of corruption can have a domino affect on how a business is ran. In today’s communities there are many ethical issues I see happening over and over again. Corruption can begin from the top of the chain regarding the CEO’s, from the middle manager’s, all the way down to the employees under them. Simple steps at making a business a ‘better business’ roots from the start of a business; teaching your employees the right ethical decisions before hand, create diversity with understanding, and overall communicating with all and building trustful relationships can help a business boom regardless if it’s a small size family owned business or a huge industry expanding overseas. Business Ethics 5 References Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2006). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right (4th ed). Hoboken, NJ; John Wiley & Sons.