Business-Ethics Challenge: First, Opportunity

Certain businesses and political organizations will commit themselves to a philosophy in a formal pronouncement of a code of ethics or for example the issue of a document de- and prescribing standards of conduct. Having done so, the recorded idealism is distributed or shelved, and all too often that is that.

Other organizations, however, will be concerned with aspects of ethics of greater specificity, usefulness, and consistency. This concern however useful does in no way prove that the ethic code has been constructed in a "good" or "right" way in the first place.

In this context here, we will use the terms "good" and "right" in a rather sloppy sense. We will want to express some things at the same time. We would like to say "in harmony with generally agreed stuff" like avoiding theft, disrespect, malevolence or slandering on one side and promoting excellent work, friendliness, politeness, respect and well-being on the other side.

We will ask and answer questions like Is it ethical, for example, to pay a bribe to obtain a business contract in a foreign country? Is it ethical to allow your company to withhold information that might discourage a job candidate from joining your organization? Is it ethical to ask someone to take a job you know will not be good for their career progress? Is it ethical to do personal business on company time?

Many people see unethical behavior as a cancer working on the fabric of society in too many of today's organizations already. Many are concerned that we face a crisis of ethics in the West that is undermining its strength. This crisis involves business-people, government officials, customers, and employees. Especially worrisome is unethical behavior among employees at all levels.

For example, a study, 20 years ago, by consulting company Jack L. Hayes International already found that employees accounted for a higher percentage of retail thefts than did customers (LA Times, 1989). The study estimated that one in every fifteen employees steals from his or her employer.

On the other hand, we can see that, allthough many people worry about ethics a lot of others and sometimes and in a different field the same people are involved in unethical behaviour. And we have not even talked about the Internet Bubble, post 2000 business scandals and certain derivative certificate practices yet.

Why Does Unethical Behaviour Occur In Business Companies And Political Parties?

In the German language their is a saying. "Gelegenheit macht Diebe". We estimate that this is a fundamental truth.

The opportunities for individuals and organizations to behave unethically seem to be limitless. Unfortunately, this potential is too frequently realized. Consider, for example, how greed overtook concerns about human welfare when the Manville Corporation suppressed evidence that asbestos inhalation was killing its employees, or when Ford failed to correct a known defect that made its Pinto car vulnerable to gas tank explosions following low speed rear-end collisions.

Companies that dump dangerous waste materials into our rivers and oceans also appear to favor their own interests over public safety and welfare. Although some of these examples are better known than many others, in the course of a human life nobody can get the impression that they are unusual. In fact, the story they tell may be far more typical than we would like, as we see estimations like the one that about two-thirds of the 500 largest American corporations have been involved in one form of illegal behaviour or another.

Be it as it may, in the United States of America business ethics has long since become an important topic, the interest of research in the country's most famous business schools and many other venues.

In Europe things are a bit different. Business ethics seem to be seen as an integral part of public and state ethics and are widely perceived as being common ground in the corresponding ideologies of social market economy and social and/or christian democracy.

However, since the start of the current financial and economical crisis, voices that promote a special focus on this branch of applied ethics, business ethics and terms like corporate social responsibility start to find their place in papers, television, radio, the web and other forms of public discourse.

As we have stated already, the most common and main reason for behaving unethically is opportunity. Without opportunity we would not even need ethics to decide if we should do one thing or not or to decide if we judge the actions of other people than ourselves as unethical or not.

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