Ethics or Moral Philosophy
- Feb 24, 2016
- 2 min read
Ethics or Moral Philosophy
“The branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.” (Wikipedia)
For the past meetings, we have been constantly focusing on the different business cases assigned to each group, besides the usual class discussion. I’ve come to realize that ethics is not usually what the business norm supports. Companies or organizations tend to be profit-oriented, meaning all accounts of productivity are driven to generate an increasing amount of income. For managers, a decision would more often than not be answering the question:Will this action benefit our company financially? This is what I have observed in the different cases our group had to tackle. Ignore the employees’ welfare, cut costs through laying off even the best employees (downsizing), and even using the customers as a means for obtaining information without proper consent. These ethical dilemmas are alarming to me since we fail to observe good relationships within the workplace, which I believe is crucial in keeping an organization intact. Having this profit-centered mentality might be the rise as well as the downfall of an organization due to the managers’ failure to give importance to his or her employees.
An example of good governance in the business scene, in my personal opinion, would probably be Japan’s culture. Japanese companies treasure their employees. They have adapted the system model in Human Behavior which allows them to work much more efficiently since their employees are willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the company, unlike in different countries where employees feel oppressed leading to their resentment towards their managers. This would be a great structure to adapt to but it would have to start with sacrifices, living with the costs for as long as employees are happy, dealing with customer demands to gain their trust and confidence, yet everything will pay off in the end. Ethics will be a moral norm naturally followed and being morally righteous in one’s actions will be innate.
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