Practicing Ethics in Business

I see business ethics today as a variable which business will proudly boast of having unless they see an advantage that would out weight any pentals for breaking those rules. Just like the laws passed in Washington create barriers to entry, if your company can afford the cost of a politicans ear, limiting competition and keeping prices higher than they would normally be with a so called market driven not ecomony. Miniunm Ethic's will be required to access some markets in the furture when selling products to citizens of a forgien countries. The lack of business ethic in the past has allowed the sale of chemicals to be used on plants that killed the farmers and plants or poisioned the soil. So ethic will be a must have for the furture like our laws are the febble attempt to set the basics of descency ethic's will set business descency rules.

In short: 'Everything has its price' (except that few recognize the cost)

-e

Modern business ethics really are what you can get away without substantial short term risk and consequence. Modern laws, market perceptions, international corporate insulations, and rapid personnel turnovers governing corporate behavior and responsibility do not have any attention span any more, and long term risk and consequences do not need to be considered. Laws to address corporate misbehaviors have been nullified in the past couple of decades, and changes in the nature of international corporations no longer make them responsible to the laws of any single nation. Staff turn-overs are now muchy more suitable sacrifices for lack of responsibility. Public influence and reponse to unethical behaviors has become convoluted by trivialities, like PETA, and the people no longer recognize when a corporation is really unethical or it is just a frnge activists exxagerate Drama or spin. Much of this can be addressed through appropriate legislation of minimum ethical requirements for corporations that have some teeth and lack the numerous loopholes the for-sale congress typically incorporates.

There is a fork in this trend that you might also discuss: the motivations behind initiatives like the Sarbanes-Oxley ("SarbOx") Act which, supposedly, will help root-out financial and accounting fraud. (Thanks, Enron, et al.) Adding more trees to the forest is not the solution. Ethical and moral behavior cannot be legislated. It must come from within.

-e