Business as an Ethical Calling: My Personal Philosophy
The last several decades have seen American enterprises beset by a number of ethical scandals, spanning from the accounting fraud of Enron and WorldCom to that of the recent subprime housing debacle and credit crisis of 2008. As a result, there has been a call to integrate ethics into the business studies curriculum and to try to temper the cutthroat atmosphere amongst ambitious aspiring executives. Concerns about treating the environment with care, the need to respond demands for a more diverse workplace, and sustainability issues are all shaping the ways that corporations present themselves to the public. But the requirement for-profit corporations to be, well, profitable, remains. Examples of successful businesses that pay homage to ethical concerns do exist but the idea of the perfectly ethical business remains elusive. However, I personally believe that because of changes in the current corporate culture of America, the idea that ethics must invariably be sacrificed to profitability is false. While it is true that ethics can be a balancing act, and not every issue is as black-and-white as following the law vs. not following the law, a business must operate with some sense of an ethical mindset to sustain customer loyalty -- and even to cut costs.
According to classical theories of firm responsibility, however, firms are not supposed to prioritize ethics over profits. Shareholders, the de facto owners of a corporation, buy stock with the intention of gaining financially, and a CEO cannot use 'other people's money' to further his or her own agenda. If cutting workers' salaries are a feasible means to increase profits, then so be it. But there are a number of problems with this perspective, even from a self-interested point-of-view. For example, corporations that fail to take into consideration the safety hazards of products, even when they continue to technically obey the letter of the law, have met with lower sales, such as the beef manufacturers of the controversial additive 'pink slime.'
On a systemic level the idea that corporate ethics is an oxymoron is being challenged. At top Ivy League schools such as Harvard Business School...
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