Reflection on Business Ethics

We are faced with ethical dilemmas almost on a daily basis. Unfortunately, people don’t always
follow the moral code of doing what is right. They don’t consider the cause and effect of their actions
and they’re putting their own benefits before anyone else. Despite the ever-growing regulations to stop
unethical decisions from being made, there are still a lot of unethical businesses that are happening
today. Lack of ethics has a negative effect on employee performance. There are cases when employees
are so concerned about getting ahead and making money, they ignore protocols of their work which can
lead to errors that impact various departments in the organization because the work has to be done
again in the right way. There’s also time when employees have the mindset that acting ethically and
following the rules will not get them ahead so they’re demotivated which also leads to a decrease in
performance. That’s why ethics is important in business because these protected values are part of an
organization’s culture.

Business ethics are highly supported with theories. The social contract theory says that people
live together in society in accordance with an agreement that establishes moral and political rules of
behavior. Social contracts can be explicit such as company laws, or implicit such as raising one’s hand
during business meetings to speak. Indeed, regardless of whether social contracts are explicit or implicit,
they provide a valuable framework for harmony. On the other hand, shareholder and stockholder may
sound similar but have different meanings. Shareholder theory is the position that a company should
always act in the interests of the shareholders alone and stakeholder theory argues that we should
always be acting in accordance to the best interest of all stakeholders in the company. These theories
give a substance and basis when it comes to making decisions.

Furthermore, the term corporate social responsibility is a business’ concern for a social welfare.
It focuses on sustainability that if a company helps society through their business as a main goal, then
they’ll reap success. Companies can look to solve society’s problems by creating products or services to
fulfill a need and they’ll profit and help the world. Business ethics also talks about moral development in
which Lawrence Kohlberg believes that one’s decision will be based on one’s level of moral
development. This is related to the aspect of business ethics because knowing one’s moral development
or learning to improve it could highly impact the business and could improve a person’s values when it
comes to solving critical problems or issues within the company.

In conclusion, when management is leading an organization ethically, employees will follow

accordingly because they’re holding those protected values. Employees make better decisions in less
time with business ethics as their guiding principles. This results in an increase in productivity and a
much higher employee morale and pride in the company they worked for. When employees can work in
a way that is based on honesty and integrity, the whole company benefits.