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Business Ethics Entrepreneurship

Guest post by: Justin Timory

Article Overview: Business ethics serves as guide for aspiring entrepreneurs on the appropriate way to run businesses. It adjusts to the good and makes companies more responsible.

Business Ethics Entrepreneurship

Given the challenging economic environment we are exposed to, it’s hard to imagine implementing business ethics in entrepreneurship. With urge to expand, cut on costs and enhance profit generation, considering other people’s feelings just seems out of the question. Good business decisions can be measured by a multitude of things. But aren’t always ethical. This is the sad part.

However inapplicable it might be in certain situations, ethics is essential for genuine growth and development. Without it, a company will just be a filler; an economic player without any lasting contribution to society.

Business ethics is a segment of applied ethics that tries to control and examine the moral and ethical setting of companies. It also scrutinizes how well or poorly a business entity addresses moral and ethical issues and points out what is wrong in their natural proceedings. It encompasses all business aspects – from production to administration, finance and marketing. It also applies to a multitude of industries and can be descriptive or normative in discipline.

Application of business ethics in entrepreneurship reflects the company’s involvement in non economic driven social values – which today, has been greatly ignored. It keeps corporations in line with the greater good and makes them a contributive player to healthier business practices.

As we all know, the prospect of earning more may exaggerate most businessmen’s desire to engage in illegal, unethical transactions. It forces them to cheat, lie, steal and deny other people of their rights in order to double/triple revenue or get ahead. For example, the lack of ethical influence can cause pharmaceutical companies to doctor lab reports regarding the side effects of their most saleable drug. It can support gender bias in recruitment. And it can also cause rich corporations to withhold benefits and wages from their workers. Though clearly inappropriate, these are social and business problems that are still prevalent today - thereby emphasizing the judicious application of ethics in business.

As depicted in the movie The Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, there are significant consequences to the lack ethics in business procedures. To expound, ethical depravity has instigated many corporate sabotages, unions, and lawsuits. In extremes, it has caused closures and commercial decline. It has toppled down leaders and governments and compromised thousands of lives. If anything, companies have to treat ethics as an essential part of their everyday operations. Given the purpose behind their existence, the role they play in society and their contribution to the whole world, companies are legally bound to be responsible for their consumer’s welfare via ethics.

It’s a good thing that a lot of start-up entrepreneurs are now more knowledgeable of business ethics for entrepreneurship. This saves the future from being a victim of past influences. If anything, we do not want to repeat our mistakes. Business ethics is currently taught in a lot of institutions and there are also thousands of references made available online. Thus, any aspiring businessman is empowered to apply it. We should all remember that as entrepreneurs, it is part of our responsibility to run our business under a moral code that respects, seeks justice and promotes the good of all people.

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Article Tags: business ethics entrepreneurship, ethics in business, startup entrepreneurs



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