You may decide you should always tell the truth to family, friends, customers,
You may decide you should always tell the truth to family, friends, customers, clients, and shareholders, and if that is not possible, you should have very good reasons why you cannot. You may also choose never to defraud or mislead your business partners. You may decide, as well, that while you are pursuing profit in your business, you will not require that all the money on the table come your way. Instead, there might be some to go around to those who are important because they are affected one way or another by your business. These are your stakeholders.
Acting with Integrity
Clients, customers, suppliers, investors, retailers, employees, the media, the government, members of the surrounding community, competitors, and even the environment are stakeholders in a business; that is, they are individuals and entities affected by the business’s decisions (Figure 11.1: A Company’s Stakeholders). Stakeholders typically value a leadership team that chooses the ethical way to accomplish the company’s legitimate for-profit goals. For example, Patagonia expresses its commitment to environmentalism via its “1% for the Planet” program, which donates 1 percent of all sales to help save the planet. In part because of this program, Patagonia has become a market leader in outdoor gear.
Stakeholders are the individuals and entities affected by a business’s decisions, including clients, customers, suppliers, investors, retailers, employees, the media, the government, members of the surrounding community, the environment, and even competitors. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)
Being successful at work may therefore consist of much more than simply earning money and promotions. It may also mean treating our employees, customers, and clients with honesty and respect. It may come from the sense of pride we feel about engaging in honest transactions, not just because the law demands it but because we demand it of ourselves. It may lie in knowing the profit we make does not come from shortchanging others. Thus, business ethics guides the conduct by which companies and their agents abide by the law and respect the rights of their stakeholders, particularly their customers, clients, employees, and the surrounding community and environment. Ethical business conduct permits us to sleep well at night.
Are business ethics an oxymoron? Read “Why Ethics Matter” to understand just a few of the reasons to have values-driven management.
Nearly all systems of religious belief stress the building blocks of engaging others with respect, empathy, and honesty. These foundational beliefs, in turn, prepare us for the codes of ethical behaviour that serve as ideal guides for business and the professions. Still, we need not subscribe to any religious faith to hold that ethical behaviour in business is still necessary. Just by virtue of being human, we all share obligations to one another, and principal among these is the requirement that we trea