How Ethics and Culture Contribute to Business Success (Essay Sample)

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How Ethics and Culture Contribute to Business Success
The success of any business depends immensely on the image it portrays to the people around it. These people include the customers, investors/shareholders, the staff, government and its competitors. It is as such that the importance of any business image is regarded highly in public as it holds invaluable value when determining the success chances of the business. This paper examines how business ethics contribute to the establishment of a successful business brand through the creation of a business culture within the law.
Holding to the law is in itself sufficient to fulfilling one's ethical duties. In the spirit of creating a working business culture or corporate culture, ethics of doing business have to be observed. In as much as the argument goes, there are no "right" set of values to follow; considerations have to be made in line with what is right in a social sense. These considerations greatly fall within financial, religious and aesthetic values of the society.
In the long run, these values serve the ends of human well-being with no regard to personal or selfish interests hence promoting impartial social welfare. Therefore, by following the law, certain standards and principles of operating businesses regardless articulate a culture acceptable within the society of its operation.
With the knowledge that compliance with the law at times prove insufficient for business morals and ethics due to the ambiguity as many Acts are not illegal until declared by courts, businesses that observe particular ethics in the way of conducting their work have to resort to what they deem right. So, relying on the law alone to guide on what is acceptable and what is not is never enough. It is up to the business management regarding as to how they view/access what is ethically right from what is wrong in the context of their business environment.
Relevance of Ethics to Business
Ethics in any business helps all stakeholders involved in any business in any capacity in understanding the basics in the management of the business. Such understanding includes questioning what people deserve and, or, demand. Also questions like, ‘What is fair or just?’, ‘What is unfair or unjust’, ‘What is wrong with greed?’ should be addressed.
With ethics, businesses can determine the right from the wrong considering the consequences of the latter. This is always based on the importance of ethical rights and principles agreed upon in the business and accepted by the stakeholders. In most cases, the underlying thresholds are always determined by duty, promise, property, rights and justice. It is these driving principles that help strike a balance in what people find to be the common good at both personal and communal level. However, people are allowed to differ on ethical judgments when there seems to be no way in deciding between competing conclusions.
It is always in the hope of every entrepreneur that their business is able to meet the demands of their target market and in return offer them income if not profit. However, not every thriving business is an ethical business. Ethical businesses are those that consider the set standards of the market in which they operate in every strategy they employ. Such standards include meeting customer expectations, providing genuine goods and services meeting the customer’s value, respecting the culture of the local community, paying taxes to authorities and contributing to the development of the local area.
Business enterprises at times fail to live to these set expectations. Cases arise of slavery, tax evasion, counterfeit goods and sub-standard services. It is by taking part in such short-cut modes of pursuing quick gains that reputable businesses turn from being ethical to unethical. At a quick glance, one would be right to pass a quick verdict on any business to be flourishing until the audit report on the same business is published.
How Utilitarianism go Against Fundamental Ethical Principles
Utilitarian ethical theory suggests that it is indeed possible to determine the ethical significance of an action by looking at the consequences of the action. The concept of utilitarianism hence directs us to decide based on the overall consequences of our acts. By doing so, we aim at maximizing the overall/greatest good for the greatest number of people. It is on such basis that strong democratic policies and institutions are anchored.
By being pragmatic and accepting that consequences determine actions, utilitarianism acknowledges two kinds of values, instrumental and intrinsic. The two make it possible to have an independent decision-making standard for good and bad which is different from egoism/self-interest mentality.
As much as it might sound beneficial, this principle leads away from the fundamental ethical principle. This is because there will rise problems in ways to measure happiness and satisfaction. When considering customers and clients as part of business, their satisfaction forms a critical part of the business model in a fundamental ethics theory.
Another problem is the differing versions of good and bad implications for human freedoms. Freedoms can be undermined in utilitarian models of business as the business management will focus on working with what they feel gives the best results and profits to ...