The Importance of Ethics and Values in Business, Questions and Answers

Question 1:

Explain the importance of ethics and values in business sustainability.

In order to understand the importance of ethics we first need to understand what ethics is. Ethics can be defined by Hornby as “moral principles that govern or influence a person’s behaviour”. It deals with an individual’s or business’s behaviour so it is therefore related to businesses. Business ethics can be defined as “written or unwritten codes of principles or values that govern decisions and actions within an organisation”. There are different types of ethics namely: descriptive ethics, normative ethics an analytical ethics. Ethics are based on genetic inheritance, religion, philosophical systems, cultural experiences and the legal system. Individual factors, organisational factors and environmental factors all influence ethics.

Values can be defined as “the context within an organisation or a society’s norms are established and justified”. . Ethics and values work interdependently and as a result, employees are more attracted to an organisation that has a good set of ethics and values.

Many ethical issues can arise because of the continuous changing environment and this is why ethics and values need to be outlined so that there is stability in a business. Some ethical issues will be discussed below.

Code of conduct is a guideline on how employees should conduct themselves in a work environment and it also explains your role within an organisation. A code of conduct is there to promote honesty and ethical conduct, the correct public disclosure and legal compliance so that fraud, dishonesty and criminal conduct can be avoided.

Whistle blowing is when an employee raises a concern to people who have the correct authority and power to ...

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...le- low concern for people and high concern for production.

3. Impoverished Style- low concern for people and low concern for production.

4. Middle-of-the-road Style- moderate concern for people and moderate concern for production.

5. Team Style- high concern for people and high concern for production.

There are many different styles of leadership that many leader-managers can develop. The ones that they develop can either be beneficial to the business and make it successful due to the employees being focused on as well as the production or it can harm the business by only focusing on the tasks that need to be completed. This will cause the employees to feel as if they are not needed and behaviour of Theory X will come into play. This can be avoided by developing good leadership characteristics so that a successful business is created and sustained.