Ethics And Business Today

Ethics and business today

INTRODUCTION

Ethics has taken strength in application for several areas of a professional nature, as they can raise awareness in the class of moral values that are established in a structured way within organizations and companies. Although under the prospects of many people, ethics should not have a quality or amount of heavy influence within the scope of business because they can become alien according to the applied scope, but to the extent that time progresses, society has evolved believes different needs and preferences, therefore under cultural and ideological aspects it has been discussed what is good and that is bad applied in the integrity and justice of an individual. Under these aspects, ethics has been applied to the organizational and business sector to be able to promote equal rights within the field of work. As this can affect the work environment, organizational and even see results through the efficiency applied within the structured systems of a company.

Every day the implementation of ethics within several professional aspects is more necessary because under a structured order it is necessary to be able to understand what kind of benefits and stability looks for a company for the good results that promote progressive and constant growth where by differentsituations or events, the moral values of each person can evolve to the agreement in model formed by the company. That is, the intentions of ethics is not only.

This is why and more than different people have come to have good or bad experiences within the labor sector due to the way of working and what kind of structure does a company carry.

DEVELOPING

It is possible today to relate what are the strongest ties of which ethics can be applied in business and how the business sector can talk about ethics as an intrinsic aspect in its work. Over time, this application ceased to be evil as something unnecessary and the kind of importance that it can thus conceptualizing the valid meanings of morality and immorality began to be noticed, it is necessary to be necessary to be able to implement norms and regulations that canstipulate each member of a work team that kind of limits according to their behavior and how it can affect and benefit the organizational climate within the company, since it is well known that production in the equipment can be seen in failure or benefitTo how the company stated what kind of aspects are relevant and necessary to follow according to the established regulation.

What do we understand by ethics in the business world? The reflection of this article leads to overcome the simple not to do what is wrong. Business responsibility aims to seek the good of all those related to the company. But this text also wants to delineate what is specific to the Christian businessman, whose horizon extends, by solidarity, beyond the limits of the company. It is no longer strange to hear about business ethics. Thanks to different motives, today there seems to be greater awareness of the morality or immorality of the decisions taken at the company’s level. Being aware of ethical dilemmas turns out to be a great advance. The consequent challenge is to know how to face and solve these dilemmas according to the values that mode our actions. 

This is why more and more executive and business directors are in search of guidelines that guide their decision -making process. Countless books and articles, creation of codes of conduct in companies, proliferation of seminars on the subject and inclusion in most business schools of at least one bouquet of Business Ethics (or some equivalent) in the curriculum, reveal aINDESMENTIBLE TREND. Despite the significant of this trend, there are still certain important issues without the necessary discussion and clarification. We can summarize them in two questions: what is traditionally understood by ethics in the business world? And what difference does it have or should have the ethical act of the Christian businessman? 

Both questions point to the same concept: the idea of ethical horizon. Horizons limit about what we can ask and, consequently, about what we can know. Even of greater significance for moral life, they limit the rank of what we usually care about.

Consequently, everything depends, to answer both questions, on the extension of our ethical horizon. Before the question ‘What is meant by business ethics’, it is generally referring to multiple situations that face daily in the different functional areas of the company. Human resources faces the problem of hiring a applicant who meets all the requirements for the position or to another not so endowed but with good references of an important client. Accounting must solve the problem of how to recognize such an expense;Marketing must decide how to communicate all the implications you have for the consumer to buy such a product;Production must judge whether to use a cheaper input in the production of the product or spend something more investing in consumer safety. 

Topics like these are essential and it is basic to ensure ethical behavior against them by all involved in the operation of companies. Otherwise the basis of trust and justice that must be the support of this professional activity is threatened. As can be detached from the aforementioned examples, we are giving out all the situations that are rightly illegal. We are referring to all those perfectly legal situations that are not necessarily ethical. The ethical resource helps us in this case to solve dilemmas that fall within the free spaces left by the law. 

This basic ethical horizon is dyed from many ‘no’: do not cheat, not exploit employees, not pay ‘coimas’, do not discriminate in hiring or dismissal of employees, etc. However, this does not seem to be enough. If this is only in this, it turns out to be a moral minimalist approach, which is limited by a narrow horizon, as it only emphasizes a minimum standard of behavior under which we should not fall. It resembles the moral code given by Yahweh to Moses on Mount Sinai. These are norms and precepts aimed at those who are in a primary stage of moral development, such as children or as in the time of the exit of Egypt was the people of Israel. So far we have worried about not doing what is wrong. It is an essentially necessary step, but not enough. 

However, as Christians we cannot settle for this. Jesus himself makes clear the real demand of the call to be a Christian when, during his sermon of the mountain, he refers to the old law to give him its total fullness: they have heard that he has said an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth … well, II tell you: Whoever slabs your right cheek will offer the left.2 We are, without a doubt, also called to do good, that good that we are not obliged to do, that good that is done by pure conviction. One can conveniently distinguish between an ethic of the law and an ethic of achievements. 

While the ethics of the law cares about rules of conduct -don’t do this, do not do that -an ethics of achievements reveals that there is a world and that there is something that I must do in it3. This call to do good is more urgent and moral obligation, the more power and means they are at our disposal. The entrepreneur has, therefore, the privilege of an authority that is potential instruments (Campo, 2000).

Ethics has ceased to be an option to become a necessity or preference with respect to moral and ethical guidelines. A coordination correctly applied and structured allows the correct social order within a entrepreneurship and constant professional condition. In 1970 Milton Friedman publishes his classic article entitled ‘The social responsibility of the company is to increase its profits’. In this article Friedman stated that there is one and only one type of social responsibility of the company: use its resources and get involved in activities that increase its profits to the extent that it is maintained within the rules of the game, which means getting involved in aopen and free competition without fraud or fraud.4 His disagreement with those who talked about the social responsibility of the company reaches the point of affirming that they are preaching pure and unaltered socialisme5. The idea of the company’s social responsibility dates back to the first years of the 30s. The devastating effects of economic depression in hundreds of thousands of workers had caused some to consider what kind of responsibility the company in the social interwoven fit. 

In 1932, the prestigious Harvard Law Review publishes an article that touches this topic. There is an extended and growing feeling that the industry owes its employees not only to refrain from making them work in excess, but the explicit duty to provide them as much as possible economic security possible. Statements like this are seeds of a new way of understanding the social responsibility of the company. Only at the beginning of the 70s this new approach begins to be known as the ‘analysis of the stakeholders’. Stakeholders understood all those who have an interest in the proper functioning of the company. Usually shareholders, employees, suppliers, clients and local community are considered stakeholders of a company. Two excellent examples about how the company-Stakeholders relationship is understood, are found in the famous ‘creed’ of Johnson & Johnson and in the first general principle of ‘The Caux Round Table’, an organization that groups executives from the United States, Europe andJapan committed to the promotion of values for those who are leaders in the world of negotiations: the company has a role to fulfill in improving the lives of all its clients, employees and shareholders, by sharing with them the wealth that it has created. Suppliers and competitors should also expect the company to respect their obligations in a spirit of honesty and justice. And as citizens responsible for local, regional, national and global communities in which they operate, the company shares the future with those communities. Without a doubt that this approach offers a new horizon to the first question we had raised: what do we understand by ‘business ethics’? As can be seen, the ethical horizon is much broader, which implies an additional challenge for entrepreneurs. 

Within the horizon of business ethics, not only does it fall doing what is wrong. Recognizing in the midst of a network of relations implies mutual responsibility between the company and all the stakeholders to seek good.6 is getting to understand that omission, that good we do not do when it is on our part to be able to do it, represents something as serious as the evil we avoid. Understand that Christian ethics is a call to do good can open a new horizon in our business activity. Looking at our company as a constant relationship with its shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees and local community, implies recognizing in the concrete all those who, the result of our ethical actions and our organization, can benefit. It is time to answer the second question we ask ourselves when we start this reflection: what difference does it have or should have the ethical act of the Christian businessman? At this point it is not strange to ask: what else can the company be asked and in particular the Christian businessman? What better can be the behavior of a responsible and concerned businessman not only of the interests of the shareholders, but of all the other stakeholders of the company? Any additional thing would seem to be an unrealizable utopia in a tremendously competitive system, which often leaves no room for very magnanimous initiatives. The fact that, today, executives and directors are permanently evaluated by the last line of the income statement, is undoubtedly a reality that we cannot ignore. In spite of difficult, the call exists. 

The distinctive the call of the Christian is to be to do a more and better good. There lies the complexity and wonder of the Christian vocation. However, specifically, what ‘most and better’ challenges us Christian ethics in business life? This question does not have a clear answer so far. Not because it is impossible to obtain one, but because very few have even asked the question. John Paul II in Centsimus Annus states that the purpose of the company is not simply the production of benefits, but rather the existed of the company as a community of men who, in various ways, seek the satisfaction of their fundamental needs and constitute aPrivate Group at the Service of Society.7 The Pope does not make a detailed description of what the company and the Christian businessman is called to do. In this the Church is wise. What is shown is the horizon, but the task of walking towards him is left to the free creativity of those who deliver his life day by day in business work. All those managers, executives, directors, who have studied administrative sciences and those who have trained in everyday experience are those who know better than anyone the limitations and potentialities of the company. They are, therefore, those responsible for bringing to the concrete the challenges that faith itself proposes, also contributing to the continuous development of ecclesial education in the social. If the model of the Stakeholders calls the company to act responsibly, to seek the good of shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees and local community -all those to whom the company ‘knows’-, at this higher ethical level the company faces theChallenge of seeking the good of those who are unknown to him, of those who do not have how to return that well done. 

This gratuity is solidarity and this sounded but expression of the so -called Christian to do good to those who need it. However, this call to solidarity also finds its foundation on the ability to do that good. The more ‘talents’ they are possessed, the more urgent the call is made to bear fruit. In this sense, the businessman not only has the power that gives him his position in the organization in which he works, but also enjoys the possibilities that the unionly group gives him. In fact, today in Chile business groups have an important space in decision -making nationwide. In the field of business ethics the same has been to bring Christian values and try to put them into practice within the horizon of the negotiations. In other words, the normal thing has been to say: ‘With what the company does, how can I behave morally or contribute to the ethical behavior of this organization?’In my opinion, the typical horizon of the company is small to the extensive horizon of our faith. What would happen if I asked me, in the first place: ‘What does the horizon of my faith imply for my ethical act in the company?’. Not only would a new world of possibilities and responsibilities open to me, but I would also live in greater fullness my Christian being. 

The noun and the adjective are exchanged: from Christian businessman to Christian businessman. At the end of the 60s, who graduated from commercial engineering at the Catholic University they received their diploma that reminded them of them: ‘… an army of invisible hands has looked the land, has raised your house, has served your table so that you couldto learn. Now, those innumerable hands -the most dispossessed -tend towards you with the gesture of need. They simply ask you what belongs to them ’. These lines have the virtue of showing us the true extension of the Christian ethical horizon. The horizon of the Christian and, specifically for the case we analyze, the horizon of the Christian who is an entrepreneur must always have as a measure of his commitment to faith, the reality of those who extend their dispossessed hands asking what belongs to them. How to compatible the demands so real, urgent and concrete that press the companies every day with the ethical demands that those who work on it face, it turns out to be commitment to faith and great size challenge. No doubt there is no recipe. The ethical challenge facing the Christian businessman requires good will, but also of a large quota of courage and creativity. To the extent that we realize that being an entrepreneur is a call, a vocation, a task entrusted from above, we will have the decision to walk through this new and broader ethical horizon. And, surely we will have the grace to do it well (Campo, 2000).

It is necessary to be able to understand that today society demands a position for comfort, and the different moral aspects that have been built over time are at stake, how is this possible? Nowadays companies have the responsibility and duty to face these movements seeks respect and establishing inflection points to be able to coordinate substantially as this can influence the performance of a team. Importance of reflecting from ethics all the activities of the company and its impact on people and society. By virtue of our condition of human beings, all the decisions we make and actions that we perform, even the most intimate, have an ethical component, which implies positive and negative consequences. This is neither the economy nor business activity. It is essential, therefore, to be aware if our actions produce a good or evil, either for ourselves, for the people with whom we work, for whom they are affected, and even for society as a whole. This is consistent with the definition of ethics, which studies human behaviors in the light of their goodness or evil. The ethical dilemma: how bad can be tolerated. Many of the decisions we make have simultaneously rigged a good and also an absence of good, which is an evil that we cannot avoid. Therefore, the ethical dilemma does not normally present in practice as an choice between doing good and avoiding evil, but as an choice between two goods. The key question is to what extent the evils caused by our decision are tolerable, even considering that many of them are predictable. The difficulty of decisions demands our best efforts. 

It is not always easy to know what needs to be done. There are many values at stake and the complexity of subjects, while our ability to understand them and evaluate them, because our motivations, biases, hierarchical position and personal interests inevitably interfere in the decision are limited. We need a good methodology for ethical case analysis to form adequate moral judgment and act accordingly. The complexity of subjects demands a systematic analysis, and our best efforts to face ethical dilemmas with the greatest weighting and sense of justice. The ethical issue cannot be reduced to the mere opinion of each or their conceptions of life. There are universal validity goals that help delimit the good of evil and that have to be respected by all. Ethical leadership: the person and their dignity in the center of attention. Ethics is not something that is added to leadership but rather is a constitutive part of this. It is a demand that springs from its entrails, it is part of its definition because human reason is scientific-technical and ethical at the same time, and for an action to be adequate, it must not only be technically good but also correct from the pointof ethical view. The good leader is clear about the person’s primacy over things, of ethics about technique. It knows how to distinguish very well between ends and media. Understand that man is an end and not a mere means that can be arranged freely, or use as a thing. He puts the person and his dignity at the center of his attention and insists on getting his collaborators at all levels of the company to grow in humanity and develop as human beings. In this way, the leader associates the project linked to ‘doing’, typical of economic and business work with the project linked to the ‘being’, which integrates the family and social life of those who work under their direction and who are impacted bythe decisions taken. Our acts generate environments. 

Our actions mold us as people and contribute to forge the work environment. What an entrepreneur, executive, worker or official does or stops doing on the work that compensates him is impacting on the most intimate of his being and throughout the company. A person who always seeks justice in dealing with his collaborators, will not only achieve such objective- generate an environment of justice- but will be considered fair and therefore link unity and harmony agent within the company. If someone corrupts third parties to obtain personal benefits, they can achieve their objectives at the expense of an environment where corruption prevails, but will also become a corrupt and source of more corruption. The habit of looking for the good, the true, the right in the world of the business is more concordant with our status of human beings, it makes us better people and contributes to creating an environment of cordiality, which is more typical of man of his. The correct professional performance is necessary but not enough for an act to be ethically adequate. The professional cannot lose sight of the aims that he pursues with his actions. It is not sufficient condition that an act can be carried out impeccably from a technical point of view so that it is morally justified. Apply technical means to perfection is not an obstacle to stop evaluating the personal and social scopes that must be considered when making a decision. A ‘technically perfect’ act may not be ethically adequate if its end is not the person. 

Life understood as a mere expression of technical skills transforms the human being into an easily substitutable gear of a great machinery that is difficult to understand. The sense of work is lost and its essence is denatured as a vocation of the person who seeks to make a contribution to society from their skills and competences. Effectiveness is transformed to the extent of any contribution, regardless of the project that is being developed and remuneration in the only way to compensate. The development of the person is relegated, or simply ignored. The sense of work. The work has an impact on who makes it and on many other people. Not only transform reality producing goods or giving services to the whole society, but also and above all transforms the person who performs it. Work is an irreplaceable way for man to be more and integrate with other human beings. 

From there the hardship of those who are without work. It is not limited to the economic. Social responsibility. It is commonly interpreted as a concern about specific problems of society, such as education, culture, poverty or others, and participation in social works or charity works with the company’s resources. By the way they are all very commendable activities that positively affect the society in which we live, but it is not all. Companies and all social actors mold the context with their actions. The reason for being of a company cannot be understood outside the good of people, human development and social life. Companies cannot limit themselves to ‘do their business’. They have to contribute to modify, change, positively affect the context in which business develops. Its survival depends not only on what it produces or offers, but in a very relevant way of the social, economic and political situation of the place where it is immersed. This manages to make business and life activity in society more healthy and stable (Newsfinancieras, 2004)

conclusion

The person to the center of business activity is the heart of ethics. The man, considered in all his wealth and in all his value, is the foundation of ethics. The nerve point to judge an act in its goodness or evil is its impact on man, his well -being, his happiness, his growth as a person. It is not the material good, prestige, or pleasure obtained. A company that is managed ethically must favor each individual to reach their fullness as a human person. A straight and well -formed conscience is the right way for our acting to be ethically correct. Educating people is a primary urgency, not only in knowing how to do, that is, in relation to the trade, typical of scientific rationality, but also in knowing how to act, typical of ethical rationality, in such a way to get it to ensure thatBoth intentions and behaviors account for the dignity of the human being in its original yearning for the true, the beautiful, the good. The company cannot be asked to be a conscientious trainer. The law, the codes of ethics and the seminars will not replace without further ado what was not acquired in the early stages of the formation. 

This task has corresponded in the first instance to the worker’s family, to the places where he formed and to society all. The education received in the family and educational instances are usually replicated in personal, labor and social life. However, the company can do an important job if it favors the principles of a person when they are positive, or contributes to modify them when they contradict what is considered ethically adequate. The good, the right thing, the true dignifies man and humanizes society. There is no doubt that acting ethically inadequate could mean in the short term some benefit for the person or company, but this benefit is not sustainable in the long term, due to the rejection produced by the person who acts taking advantage of a situation. 

Achieving the trust of others is an arduous job that takes a long time. Losing it is very easy, a hard action with moral norms is enough for this to happen. However, it must not be honest because it is sought to gain the trust of other people, but because it is good for man, he claims it in his dignity, and it is the best way to face in life with oneself and with others. And this being an ethical course in the company, we would like to end up proposing that only in a society where they prevail moral values will be possible to encourage people to start new companies, generate wealth, and create more jobs, because there are not many who are willingto create companies in an environment where corruption reigns or where they have to put in parentheses guiding values that encourage their being and act.

Bibliographic references

• Field, c. d. (2000). Entrepreneurs and ethics. Obtained from ProQuest: https: // search.Proquest.com/docvieww/748372237?ACCOUNT = 130858
• Financial news. (December 14, 2004). Analyst reflects on the ethics applied in the company;[Source: Mercury]. Obtained from ProQuest: https: // search.Proquest.com/docvieww/466628659?ACCOUNT = 130858