Business ethics

Business ethics are implemented in order to ensure that a certain required level of trust exists between consumers and various forms of market participants with businesses. For example, a portfolio manager must give the same consideration to the portfolios of family members and small individual investors. Such practices ensure that the public is treated fairly. Business ethics are not only applied to any specific field, but to the overall business environment. A GP running a practice would have its own Rules and code of conducts. Same would be with a stock broker; it would have to abide by some rules in order to trade in an ethical manor. Not always there are rules against unethical issues; sometimes it’s one’s own judgement. Some people might consider using leather unethical; on the other hand there is big business that would make millions every day from sales of it. There are Institutes not only in Britain, but around the world; which are working to increase awareness of business ethics. Such as the “INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS ETHICS”. On their website it is mentioned,” Ethics goes beyond the legal requirements for a company and is, therefore, about discretionary decisions and behaviour guided by values.” This suggests us as the same above that sometimes ethics is quite different from rules or constitution. Sometimes it is a benefit for a business to abide by ethical policies. Below are a few prospects mentioned found on research. Attract customers to the firm's products, thereby boosting sales and profits Make employees want to stay with the business, reduce labour turnover and therefore increase productivity Attract more employees wanting to work for the business, reduce recruitment costs and enable the company to get the most talented employees Attract investors and keep the company's share price high, thereby protecting the business from takeover. A few years ago the famous fifa footballs were made in Sialkot, a city in Pakistan. It was found out that they were not being produced according to the world ethical standards, as child labour was used in the production. A children’s foundation was involved to identify this issue and work to improve it and eventually the contract was taken away from that company. The labour was cheap and the quality was high, so they never realised the issues before. In a way majority of the world now thinks that the ethical standards have been improved and the world cup is played with good policies, but there is also an opposite side to this argument. All the workers working in that factory have lost their source of income and the government cannot afford to look after them. They are in a worse situation now. Like many other things there are two sides of a picture to analyse. People do consider that now everything is according to ethical standards, but I personally would argue that taking the contract away was a bigger unethical problem. There is no perfect answer for it and the discussion can go on for long. March 3, 2014 [Business ethics] BUSINESS ETHICS BY SOMAN NADIM IQBAL