Global Business Ethics

Global Business Ethics

The world of business is the world of contradiction, and thus you can find in this world success and failure, dishonesty and honesty, loyalty and treason and so on. In business there are two main styles, capitalism and socialism. Admittedly, they have a great influence on the employees, managers and owners behavior. Nowadays, business ethics has become a significant subject all over the world. In fact, this not only because of the importance of morals as part of people's lives, but also because unethical behavior in business can lead to numerous economical, social and political problems such as suicide, unemployment, bankruptcy, price rises, level of living deteriorating, economic recession, etc. Now, what does business mean? What do ethics mean? What does business ethics mean? Why are ethics important and useful in business? What is unethical behavior in business? Briefly, business means an activity in your life that you do to earn money for livelihood or gain, for instance, producing, buying, selling goods, or providing services for people or companies. Partly, ethics means a collection of ideas and rules which influences the behavior of people. So, the definition of ethics is different from one country to another based on the ideas of right and wrong in each country. Now, what does business ethics mean? In a few words it means applying the moral rules in work and business.

In fact, there are many advantageous of applying ethics in business. The following are some of these advantageous: First, to encourage cooperation between companies; second, the realization of stability in the society. Also, according to Velasquez (1998), when employees feel that their company's decision-making processes are just, they will show high levels of loyalty, confidence, obedience, honesty and they will do the work earnestly for the benefit of their company. Furthermore, there is a decrease in the number of crimes particularly financial crime.

Every organization has a corporate code of conduct and ethics which serve as the cornerstone upon which employees make decisions based on morale conduct, integrity and trust. The presence of corporate codes of ethics can be associated with less wrongdoing in the organization and organizational commitment. Ethical decisions in the workplace sustain employees from losing self-control when work and personal life becomes stressful. Today's organizations are very fast paced compared to organizations of the past (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2003, p. 3). The need to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time has become an industry standard practice of modern times. Employees always have to make quick decisions on daily tasks.

In an ethical organization, it is understood that every significant management decision has ethical value dimensions. Corporate code of ethics holds a company together when its members lose their balance between work and personal life during stressful times. An organization that enforces ethical regulations and company values will result in employees being united and committed (Watson, Papamacros, Teague and Bean, 2004). Employees that have a sense of unity and direction can work in ...