CO EXISTENCE OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND BUSINESS

Coexistence of Professional Ethics and business. Topic itself opens a floor for philosophical debate.

It’s always a common topic among business students and academic experts. 

Most of such discussion begins with a question “Can Professional Ethics and business co-exist”?

Indeed, it’s a question that  arises from a misconception that people think business is meant for only financial profit.

Of course, it’s not! 

Business is not only meant for financial profit; rather business and professional ethics shall always run concurrent for a sustainable growth.

We can see many unhealthy things in business around us where people are only concerned about maximizing their financial profits regardless of ethics and moral values. Sometimes it gives them more profit for short term but it’s really not giving better results for  long run. 

Whatever the business you do, let it be trading, service industry, Health care, production, managerial, banking or even money lending. You should be committed to keep ethics in dealings.we know if ethics are poor at the top,that behavior is copied down through the organization which lead to a serious threat.

You may  feel your business growth is much slower or it’s not accelerating when you are committed to keep ethics and moral values in your business. But indeed, your business, might have taken attention among customers and It might help for a sustainable growth. In other words, business without ethics is like a mirage. Even if you think there is a greenery apart after your business, the truth is,it is not really there.

Whenever you think ,let this ethics stay away from business, then you yourself is starting to endanger your life and of your generations. When you take ethics away from business normally it’s dealing with illegal things, helping mafia and trying to break authority regulations.

Just imagine if everybody starts to keep ethical values away from their business and only concerned about their profit. What you can expect from Medical professionals and medicine suppliers? How we can trust that buildings and infrastructure developed by unethical engineers? How you can think about just go out and dine where unethical chefs preparing food for you? How you can learn from teachers they are not committed with ethics and social responsibility?

 Likewise we can see a number of ill practices like some blackmarket players deliberately creating shortages  in legal goods to force people to purchase from them, high pricing when demands increase etc…where ethics gets zero value.

In the other hand, we can see lot of business running success with professional ethics and commitment with society. Corporates with social responsibilities. The biggest example is  Tata Group which is an Indian multinational conglomerate company.  66% of Tata Son’s equity is held by the Tata Trusts and dividends flow directly to support the philanthropic work of the Trusts. Over the past century and a half, the Tata group has calibrated its mission to address India’s most urgent needs.

 In response of lack of required covid-19 test kits in India, Tata group joined their hand with government and developed a faster and economic testing kits but without tolerating quality and reliability of test.

All such activities shows how co-existence of professional ethics and Business is not just a wondering question, but reflecting the reality of sustainable growth of business with a strong commitment to ethical values.

We have witnessed a lot of actions during this Covid-19 pandemic situations where professional ethics and business run parallel for the betterment of society.

Thousands of professional and business establishments joined their hands together to fight against this pandemic. 

So, it’s again proved that Ethics and Business should run concurrently. Always! 

– Farhana
BSc, 1st Year
SDM College, Ujjire

CO EXISTENCE OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND BUSINESS

Co existence of ethics in business is an important aspect to adapt fame. Business and ethics do indeed exist together sometimes. Establishing standards or rules describing the kind of behavior an ethical person should and should not engage in, are ethical principles. Though business is just an act of man, the co existence of ethics makes it way much stronger. Many businesses make a strong claim on ethical practices as a marketing point of pride. But on the other hand it is not always possible to run a business either with complete ethical or complete corrupt behaviour. Because on being extra ethical, companies tend to lose out on the profits to sustain themselves. Yet the balance should be more on the ethical ways.

Ethics is relative to time and situation and calls for the right judgements to be made: both on a personal level and on being empathetic to others too.

Ethical decision making systematically considers principles like Honesty, Integrity, Promise-keeping and Trustworthiness, Loyalty, Fairness, Concern for others, Respect for others, Law abiding, Commitment to excellence, Leadership, Reputation and Morale, Accountability. Business ethics is also considered to be as an extension of personal conviction, how far a person is willing to go to stand for the values, without being hard and fast on it at the same time, this is what makes the business ethics a balanced effort.

There are many pros of running a business co existent with ethics such as: It lay strategic decision-making, It increase employee retention, An ethical business attracts investors, It minimizes costs, Ethical practices help in building and maintaining reputation, An ethically oriented company is bound to avoid fines, Ethics in business attract more employees, Good Business ethics is the key to enhancing productivity, Ethics creates customer loyalty, Ethics encourages teamwork, A business that values ethics attracts more suppliers, Ethics enhance partnerships, Ethics reduces business risks, It improves a company’s bottom line, Ethics increases business profits, Ethics lead to sustainable growth in sales, Good ethics in business boosts the morale of the employees, Ethics helps in building consumer confidence, Ethics enables a company to make good use of limited resources, Ethics in the business allows for healthy competition, Ethics leads to long-term gains, Ethics helps in maintaining quality, Ethics offers extra asset protection, Ethical practices foster community improvement, Good business ethics is an end in itself, Ethics promotes Corporate Governance in an organization, Ethical practices help in setting up internal control systems, Ethics increases the equality at workplaces. In short business and ethics together is efficient and is profitable in long runs.

Where as it has a few cons like: Makes no business or brand sense, With higher ethical values a company would lose its sustainability, Unethical business makes faster money than an ethical one, Running an ethical business wouldn’t provide enough revenue streams.

Even though Business with ethical principles has more pros than cons we just have few companies who run their businesses with ethics like TATA GROUP OF COMPANIES. As in many places ethics and business won’t go hand in hand. We should adapt to an Ethical business, so as it will increase the ethical value in our society and have the power to make a country better.

Hence a business without ethics is like a person with a compass with no direction to go but just to keep a watch on.

– Ifat Fatima Hatterkihal 
BSc 1st Year
DMS Mandal’s ,Bhaurao kakatkar college , Belguam