Business Ethics

Business Ethics

I have chosen to write my paper on business ethics and the different things that are being done to improve ethics in the business world. This tends to be the majority of what our book has focused on and what much of the corporate world is spending tons of resources to improve. I think much of the hype for improving business ethics stems from the most recent economic downturn in the world and America especially. This has led people to realize that corruption and unethical behavior was behind much of the financial meltdown that happened. People greed and selfish behavior led to doing bad business. That being said the government also had much to do with the business world becoming corrupt as well they seemed to promote this unhealthy greed and made people do the unethical decisions upon the basis that it felt good. It was the governments idea that everyone needed a home and should have a right because they live in America to own that home. Somewhere we forgot that owning a home has an ethical side to it as well. The ethics of owning a home are that a person makes a commitment to buy a home at a price and are obligated to pay for that home. An Ethical person would do everything necessary to pay for that home and honor the deal they made.

On another Ethics note related to home mortgages if you look at the ethics of the lenders who are a business and the poor ethics that they maintained. An ethical company would not have given loans to people who could not afford them. I believe the ethics of theses businesses led them to believe that they were in a win win situation that even if the people only made one payment and defaulted they would still be able to forclose on the house and then sell it for more and in the mean time have cheated a person out of their money and their home. You can look at the lenders and blame them for their part but many times they were being forced by our government which is far from ethical to do the things that were required by lawmakers.This example is why the business world is so concerned with ethics because if we do not get it under control then American business will suffer.

American business is extremely concerned with public perception of Ethics after this economic meltdown. In general most Americans do not believe that any business is ethical. This is why most people see business ethics as an oxymoron. We have been led to believe that business and their unethical behavior is what is hurting American life. It was very interesting last year when everything was beginning to crumble to see how the business men were paraded around and publicized for their excessive salaries. It is not to say that it was not justified but if you look at it was it treally necessary to make such a display out of it. It was also interesting to note how the executives handled the bad press they received. The Execs. Drove to Washington instead of flying their jets which really business wise was probably better method of transportation for them but because of the pressure they drove because that is what they thought the public wanted to see.

It is obvious that Ethics is a major issue in todays society not only in the business world but in society as a whole. Businesses are doing more and more to promote their good image of being ethical. Corporations are spending more than ever before to train employees on being ethical even though they know it mostly is nothing more than a public relations ploy to improve their image. When it comes down to it most of what every business does is already Ethical and most employees know what is ethical and only do things that they would consider ethical. Human nature is not to do things that they believe are wrong. Human nature also tells us to protect ourselves and do what is in our own best interest maybe at the expense of others.

This leads us to the