Values in Business Ethics

Background

Values in very general sense, is understood as individual factor. It is important to deal general concept of values, types of formation of values, values and behavior, organizational values, shared values, relevance of ethics and values in business for the detail understanding of values in business in relation to business ethics.

What are Values?

Values are more associated with the individuals as ethics to the business (Fernando, 2014).  Personal values are as the desirable and objectives of an individual and or a group. A values is a view of life and judgment of what is desirable that is very much part of a person's personality and a group's morale.

Values & Business Ethics

Personal values are imbibed (swallowed) from parents, teachers and elders and as an individual grows, values are adapted and refined in the light of new knowledge and experiences.

How Values work in Organizations?

Within an organization, values are planted and cultivated with the help of his coordinates. It is by the founder-entrepreneur or a dominant chief executive and they remain in some form, even long after that person's exit.

For example if somebody asks to define 'Coke' the cold drinks. Obviously from the manufacturer to the distributor will have a kind of feeling that they are a part of a larger group which carries the name and prestige of Tatas and public recognition of honesty and reliability as well as trustworthiness.

There might be more indirect responses, which obviously are also called more metaphysical. For example, there is an innate loyalty, a sharing of certain beliefs. That they all feel a certain pride that they are somewhat different from others. These certain values are founded and implanted by the founder of the company.

There are three things in business ethics. The first thing is the ethics in itself. The second is business goals and techniques. The third factor is human ends. All these aspects are arranged as business ethics operate as a system of values relating business goals and techniques to meet specific human ends.

Here it means dealing the needs and aspirations of individual as part of society. By doing so, we are realizing the personal dignity of human beings.

In this context, a leadership should work hard to inculcate personal values and impart a sense of business ethics to the organizational members.

The values and ethics in an organization in one hand shape the corporate culture and dictate the way how politics and power will be used and on the other hand they also the social responsibility of the organization.

Most of the executives and his/her coordinates these days are in dilemma because they have to decide whether to reconcile the pragmatic demands of work which often degenerate to distortion of values and unethical business practices or to listen to the call of their inner voice which somehow prevents from using unethical means for achieving organizational goals.

This confusion or dilemma stems from the fact that apparently the value system of the organization has already been contaminated beyond redemption.

Some analysts believe that this thing is acceptable and ethical in some particular social context and time being.

Or such things are justifiable because social development has going to be obsolete (out of date).

Indian Unethical Context for Multinational Companies

For example many multinational companies in India indulged in some undesirable practices such as resorting to payment of speed money, bribery, use of substandard inputs, evaluation of exercise duties and corporation taxes.

There might be several reasons behind this. For example, those people who cannot do such type of unethical activities in their home countries because they fear to do so in their home countries where the penalties and fines are attached. Another encouraging factor behind this is the dire need to make a profit in a fiercely (violently) competitive environment also makes them indulge in such malpractices.

We can face corruption in industry which is a certainly a by-product of degradation of values and ethics is also related to the inability of industry to stand up to the flexible powers of a regulatory system designed and administered by an unholy association of bureaucrats and politicians.

But repeated observations have shown that excellent organizations-besides other values-have explicit belief in, and recognition of the importance of the organizations.

There are many products which have international recognition and primarily manufactured in India such as Infosys, Tata Steel, Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto and Wipro etc has to provide the base trainings to its managers which could implant and inculcate the desired values.

Various challenges and problems such as lack of transparency, integrity and unfair presentation of financial statements feeding top managements only with information they want to hear, window dressing of balance sheets etc. They also manage like back dating of contracts, manipulation of profit and loss of accounts, prevarication and fudging of unexplainable and undue expenditures etc make the things and system unethical.

Personal Values, Ethics and Business Strategies

Personal values and ethics are important for everybody. The top level managers with no doubt custodian (guardian) for the vested economic power in the organization by the society.

But the tricky questions here is whether a manager can prevent his/her personal interest and values from affecting business strategy formulation and implementation is really considerable.

The possible threat always is most of the managers often not guided by the company values and policies or the directions of board and committee on what they are expected to do but they engage in some activities and what they are guided by their personal interest.

This gives the birth of chaos and unsystematic business atmosphere where the right connection among values, ethics and strategy is lost while running and managing the businesses.

It means businesspersons and entrepreneurs should take business decisions not only in terms of purely economic reasons but on ethical and moral values and standard they are supposed to follow.

Ethics should perform the pivotal role in formulating both short term and long term strategies of a business. Ethical consideration is imperative mainly before profit making rather than after profit making to lead the business to the right direction.

What is the difference between values and ethics?

Many scholars tend to define and discriminate them in terms of part and whole. Value is an aspect but ethics is a system.

More specifically, values are personal in nature for example a belief in providing customer satisfaction and being a god paymaster but ethics is a generalized value system for example avoiding favoritism in recruitment and adopting fair business practices.

Business ethics simply provide the general guidelines which helps the management on how to operate the entire business. Values unlike ethics although offer alternatives to choose from. Values are different at the time of application form one manager to another based on the context and time.

References

Timilsena (2021) Business Communication Platfom

Related Articles 

What is Business Ethics and What is not Business Ethics?

Business Communication