Roots of unethical

Behaviour
.
.
 The memory of ethics catastrophes at firms
large and small like Enron, WorldCom, Tyco,
and Hewlett-Packard elevated public
bitterness toward corporate executives as
never before. Unethical behavior has spoiled
the public’s conviction about the inherent
goodness in people and spawned charges for
more government oversight of private
industry.
.
 In free societies, many people identify with
Milton Friedman’s laissez faire principle that if
society lets its people pursue their personal
and professional interests in the context of a
capitalistic framework to operate without
restraint, positive principled intentions and
ethical consequences will naturally ensue. On
the contrary, it turns out that most people
unaware of the divergence between how
ethical people think they are and how ethical
they actually are.
.
 Why do people behave unethically? Why do
some employees engage in unethical acts
such as lying on an expense account,
accepting kickbacks, falsifying reports, and
forging signatures? One or more of these root
cause factors might be at play in unethical
behavior:
.
 Poor ethical leadership
 Poor communications
 Pressure to balance work and family
 Pressure to meet sales or profit goals
 Lack of management support
 Resentment to the workplace and retaliation
 Company policies
 Little or no recognition of achievements
 Long work hours, heavy workload
 Personal financial worries
 Insufficient resources
.
Ethics Officers Association (1997)
 Balancing work and family 52 %
 Poor Leadership 51 %
 Poor internal communication 51 %
 Lack of management support 48 %
 Need to meet goals 46 %
.
 In the modern societies, with eroding
adherence to personal and societal values, the
temptation to behave in unethical ways is not
going to go away. As young professionals go
into business today, the enticement to evade
ethics is mounting. We live in a time of deep
obligation on individuals and organizations to
cut corners, pursue their own personal and
professional interests, and forget about the
consequences of their behavior on others.