Analysis of Personal and Organizational Ethics and Values between For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Organizations
Introduction
Ethics and social responsibility are critical for companies and have an impact on the long-term sustainability of the businesses. Ethics refers to the belief of what is right and what is not. A strong framework thus forms within which people make decisions and also ensure that all employees and supervisors are fair to each other. It is of significance that employees ensure that they can distinguish the acceptable from the unacceptable. This would help ensure better levels of ethics and its implementation in an organization. Ethics is important for all organizations, whether they are for-profit organizations or non-profit organizations (Williams & Siegels, 2005).
Ethics has been defined in several ways ranging from beliefs of what is right to a framework of moral values. It is true that ethics has to be adopted in all walks of life. But the concept of an ethical dilemma does come in for profit-oriented business as its main objective is to increase profits for its shareholders and owners (Caroll, 2001). Weather profit-oriented business should focus on ethics or not is a question that has often been debated. It is important for an organization to ensure that ethics is stringently followed in the organization.
Personal and Organizational Ethics
Personal ethics is extremely important because it brings in better value systems and morals. It also helps a person be able to form a strong image of honesty and integrity. I believe that every individual should adopt ethics in all their endeavours, including their personal lives and their professional lives. This would help them create a stronger self-image and confidence as well. Ethics in case of business helps protect the interests of all stakeholders. It helps to be assured of that nothing wrong is being done within an organization and that no immoral or illegal activity takes place. Ethics helps ensure that people operate within an acceptable framework, and this is crucial for all businesses (McAlister & Ferrell, 2003).
Ethics helps organizations be fair and create an employee-friendly work environment. Moreover, they provide higher value to consumers and shareholders (Caroll, 2001). They help improve the society and do not harm the natural resources as well as the environment. Ethics and social responsibility are important for businesses and beyond profits since this has a long term impact on the society. Ethics and social responsibility is an essential element of present day organizations because it helps in forming a collective movement towards improving the society. It also helps in forming better life for everyone.
Values For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Organizations
The argument that all businesses, whether for profit or not, should adopt ethics is of significance. This is true and holds good for sustenance of the society. Ethics form an essential part of all businesses as it helps them adopt the righteous path in all their activities, towards all their stakeholders and in all their decisions (Williams & Siegels, 2005). Ethics is an extremely important aspect that present day businesses need to consider. Even if the ptofit making is the main goal of the business, it should focus on earning and maximizing the profits in an ethical manner.
Ethics helps organizations be fair and create an employee-friendly work environment and this is essential for retention of employees as well as customers. In this way, ethics is an essential part of present day businesses and the framework in which global organizations operate (Williams & Siegels, 2005). It is extremely important for a business to adopt ethics as this can help them from a strategic point of view. Moreover, it is the social responsibility of a corporate firm to ensure the welfare of the society because they obtain a lot of support and infrastructure from the society (Caroll, 2001).
Ethical Dilemma is an intricate situation that involves mental conflict between moral imperatives, to follow one such ethic a person contravenes another. Managers play an important role in resolving ethical dilemma. Routine and strategic decisions are made in the organization and it is important that there is appropriate categorization of the ethics and values to be used in these decisions. In the case of business operations, it is important that managers do not ignore ethics and ensure that they are imbibed in every single stage of business. This helps create stronger bonds within the organization, and this creates better levels of synchronization in the business.
Values are important for both profit-oriented organizations as well as non-profit oriented organizations. Values form the basis on which the organization is formed, and this is a crucial part of developing in the right direction in a sustainable manner. All of these elements make it extremely important for an organization to adopt effective ways of dealing with every decision in a righteous method (Freeman, et.al., 2008). It is extremely important for organizations to strengthen their CSR policies and create formal procedures that help review the CSR policies from time to time. Contribution in CSR leads to healthier external relationship which helps in developing good relations with stakeholders and increasing their interest in the company (Williams & Siegels, 2005).
In this way, it is extremely crucial that a business does operate as an important element of the society and does not focus only on profits or internal growth. It is extremely important for an organization to be ethical in all of its processes and ensure higher value to consumers as well as stakeholders. This helps create a better impact on the society as well as the organization environment as well.
Ethics and values should be focused on environment protection, quality, transparency and accountability. Not just the society, but the consumer should also be given priority while making decisions, and they should be in his interest. A humble firm is a firm that believes in giving back to the society and adapts to ethical behaviour, as well as ethical frameworks. In case of a business following and adapting CSR, it helps them achieve healthier external relationships which are beneficial to them and can help them grow in terms of being just and ethical (McAlister & Ferrell, 2003).
Contribution in CSR leads to healthier external relationship which helps in developing good relations with stakeholders and increasing their interest in the company (Jones, 2005). It is extremely essential that Lehman Brothers has a transparent financial and investment policy in order to safeguard the interests of the society as well as the stakeholders. Only then it can be considered as a humble firm. This helps create a strong level of focus on righteousness at all levels of the organization. Moreover, it also helps ensure betterment and value for the consumer as well (Jones, 2005).
Financial transparency can help the organization achieve trust and support from stakeholders as well as shareholders. This creates a beneficial level of growth and support from the society. It also helps form value based management. These elements help create a stronger level of growth and trust in the organization. Stakeholders’ interests have to be protected invariably.
Ethics defines what is right and what is not, thus helping organizations be responsible towards the society and also create a strong foundation for the decision making and value system in the organization (Jones, 2005). The concept of ethics is of great importance in present times, and it is a factor that helps distinguish a business organization from its counterparts. In this way, on ethics and ethical processes the business can flourish and establish itself among all stakeholders including shareholders and customers.
Unethical behaviour can go undetected by regulators and accountants if they make false documents and forged proofs. The implication of this to financial markets and the present day businesses is that they are required to use CSR principles so that it is possible for them to earn better levels of ethics being followed within the organizations. So present day organizations should try and adopt explicit policies for the usage of ethics in the organization. It is important that organizations in present times use these principles in each and every operation and each and every decision that they undertake (Caroll, 2009).
These elements can help improve the levels of focus on ethics and ethical processes. A special team, as well as a framework, needs to be formed in order to help the organization adopt ethics in all of its endeavours (Smith, 2003). This can help create an ethics oriented culture and help form a strong level of concentration on adopting better value system. The lack of ethical policies and corporate social responsibility helps form a better level of possibility for chances and risk of manipulations and unethical events to take place in the organization. This should not be taken lightly. It should be a core function in an organization to ensure that there be effective focus on ethics in an organization (McAlister & Ferrell, 2003). Value based management can help create higher levels of standards of ethics in the organization. They help create CSR policies and a formal procedure for managing the business where in businesses is managed with ethics and every decision of the business whose core comprises of ethics and virtue. If businesses lack virtue, then it is quite possible that these types of behaviours take place in organizations and lead to their collapse. It is extremely important for an organization to focus on achieving all of these elements and create an ethical organization (McAlister & Ferrell, 2003).
The employees play a major role in the implementation of the CSR activity. If the activity has regulatory or political lobbying implications then, it has to be a top-down approach. The leadership team will decide the agenda of the CSR activity, and the employees will have to implement the activity. If the CSR does not have any regulatory impact then it would be better if this a bottom-up approach (McAlister and Ferrell, 2002). As the employees know the ground realities and they would make vital suggestions for the CSR activity. The bottom-up approach to implementing CSR gives the sense of ownership to the employees. It will also give an opportunity to the employees to connect with the community around and be goodwill ambassadors for the organization.
As business activities are meant to benefit the society and not harm them. Businesses should not be involved in any destructive, detrimental or harmful activity. All their acts must be in the favour of the society. They should try and benefit the society by taking care of not harming the environment, not polluting, not making harmful products, ensuring better quality and being ethical in everything they do. This will help businesses be favourable and acceptable to the society.
Businesses are set up to carry out economic activities that can help create value in the society and the economy. Performing unethical activities and using not acceptable methods like cheating consumers, harming the environment or spreading rumours for their advantage would only deteriorate the goodwill of the business (Badaracco & Webb, 2005). It would lead to loss of trust and also result in problems for the business in the long run. These elements make it extremely important for a business to adopt ethics in all of its activities (Friedman, 2007).
Being ethical can help a business in several ways as they win the trust of the shareholders, employees, creditors, government and other stakeholders. This helps form a reputation and improve goodwill that are strategically beneficial. A trust created by a business is much more valuable in the long run than the monetary gains or profits earned by the firm. These elements make it essential for a profit-oriented business to ensure that they earn profits only in ethical ways and do not indulge in unethical practices for gains at any point of time (Badaracco & Webb, 2005).
Ethics should be adopted as a priority over profit. It is true that a profit-oriented business is focused on increasing profits. But it is wrong to achieve this at the cost of others or a cost or destruction to the society (Williams & Siegels, 2005). Ethics is extremely important even in case of a profit-oriented business as profits can be made even in ethical ways, and it is extremely wrong to adopt an unethical method just to increase profits. It is good if a company is ethical as then people would place higher value and confidence in it. They would also receive better levels of business stability and reach out well to the people. It helps procure the support of the government as well as the customers and stakeholders which is essential for creating a stronger level of transparency as well as market growth. It is important for them that they can show their responsibility towards the society and are not indifferent to the needs of the people (Clarkson, 2010).
Conclusion
References
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