Introduction
Practicing business ethics involves three major steps; first, there must be a set of values that are used as a guideline in decision-making in a business environment, second, an understanding of the parties affected by those values and finally deciding on what actions works best for the values (Harry 45). Business ethics enable us to tell what is right and what is wrong in the course of doing business concerning the law. Good values make the society a better place to live. This essay gives a case study on business ethics in four parts. The first part introduces the topic and gives the paper structure. The second part discusses the personal code of ethics. The third part applies the personal code of ethics to a profession, and the part concludes the essay.
Part A: My Code of Ethics
A personal code of ethics acts as a guideline or reason for doing what one does or believing in what they believe in. It comprises of core values, morals, and ethics that guides a person.
My first core value is personal excellence. The desire to excel in everything that I undertake drives me to carry out tasks carefully, paying key attention to detail because the outcome matters a lot to me. Excellence drives me to seek nothing but perfection in my tasks. The second core value is honesty. Honesty is admirable even in the smallest aspects of life, and it is a good feeling to know that people can trust you even in the smallest matters because you are honest. This makes me straighten my paths because I know that people behind me trust me, and I cannot fail them. The third core value is responsibility. Responsibility here takes two dimensions; one is owning up to my mistakes and paying for them and second, is taking care of myself and my family in future. Responsibility helps me live maturely because I know that I have a role to play in a person's life and solely responsible for any stupid decision I may make in life.
Moral Character
Integrity is the most admirable moral character. According to me, integrity is carrying out a task reliably with honesty and uprightness, and sticking to the set standards of doing things without being swayed easily from the right way of doing things using bribe or any form of incentive. Virtues are important in shaping a better society (Camus et al. 25). The virtues that I would wish to cultivate are honesty, discipline, and service to others. Discipline makes one to perform and achieve a goal without necessarily being supervised. Honesty makes one be trusted and service to others results to a better working place. Some of the vices I avoid in my life are; untrustworthiness because I want to be trusted in all the areas of my life, injustice because it exploits the innocent and less fortunate and greed because it is the mother of all evil.
Ethics in my life
Ethics are a guideline to my daily life; they guide me on what is wrong and what right and help me make wise decisions (Nietzsche et al. 52). Ethics also help me live maturely, responsibly and be mindful of others. Without ethics, my life would be chaotic, and selfish. Selfishness often leads to fights and hatred with the people surrounding you and therefore I would lead a very unhappy life without ethics.
Part B: Application of My Code of Ethics
A case studies from future profession
You have been a professional accountant for a telecommunication company for 15 years. The company’s financial year ends on 30th June, and you are closing end year accounts.
The telecommunication line is not performing well against the competition in the industry, and therefore, the shareholders want to sell the company. The company's goodwill is not that much because of its poor performance, but the managing director wants you to value the goodwill at a higher amount. He also wants you to list the company’s fixed assets without considering depreciation and therefore inflating their value in the financial statements. The managing director assures you that you will get a promotion and pay rise.
Facts/ Summary of the case
Some of the ethical issues that emerge in this case are; integrity, honesty, and diligent due care. As the accountant, you must exercise integrity in the information you give in the financial statements by being honest. The accountant must be objective in the information despite the seemingly attractive package of promotion and rise in salary. Finally, the accountant must exhibit professional competence and due care by getting the right market value of the fixed assets and the goodwill.
Stakeholders
The moral agent, in this case, is the accountant. The accountant knows the right thing to do regarding the disclosure in the financial statements. The accountant is very important here because the decision to do right or wrong lies solely in his hands. The moral recipient is the managing director. He is equally important because he can still decide to do the right thing by letting the accountant disclose the right information concerning the company's fixed assets and goodwill.
Ethical theory
Two ethical theories are useful in this case. The first is the ethical relativism which is based on right and wrong, vices and virtues and good and evil. It will be wrong for the accountant to be dishonest and disclose false information in the financial statements. The second theory will be the Ethical Egoism theory under which people are trapped in the belief that they have to sacrifice their happiness to make others happy. For instance, in this case, the accountant is expected to make the managing director happy by compromising his integrity, objectivity and professional competence and due care.
Decision
One of my core values is honesty. The accountant must act with integrity and disclose the right values of the fixed assets after gathering enough information about the current market value of the company's fixed assets and goodwill. The moral character will restrain me from being unjust in my judgment and therefore I will give a fair judgment.
Conclusion
Ethics and moral characters are key drivers and motivators of what we do. Ethics most importantly helps us differentiate what is right from what is wrong. Some theories have been put forward to explain ethics in society among them ethical relativism and ethical egoism. Ethical relativism is most important because it is intended to separate right from wrong, good from evil and virtues and vices. Ethics shapes humanity into better persons, drives them to act maturely and responsibly without the need to be watched all the time.
Works Cited
Harry B. How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World: The Unselfishness Trap. Macmillan Publishing Company. 1973. Print.
Camus, Albert, and Matthew Ward. The Stranger. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Walter Arnold Kaufmann, and R. J. Hollingdale.The Will to Power. New York: Random House, 1967. Print.
