This article looks at the relationship between ethics and management. Ethics is a fundamental skill for professionals who need to make sense of their activity, make the most accurate decisions possible and be able to justify or argue them.
Ethics can be a key dimension of management for growing businesses. You will be successful if you are sensitive towards the need to meet the expectations of your stakeholders: guests who want to be reassured about the products they buy; suppliers seeking partnership relations based on trust; employees seeking a healthy work environment, and meaning to their commitment.
The objective is not, in my opinion, to exploit ethics, because that would be "monstrous", but to "operationalize" this and more precisely in a professional context.
Definition: Ethics is looking for the right decision in a given work situation, that is to say the decision which can satisfy a balanced way the interests of different stakeholders.
The lack of ethics simply falls sometimes a lack of professionalism. The search for the right decision indeed requires both technical skills and ethical competence. The professional achievement involves a consideration of the ethical dimension of trade.
Ethics is a key dimension of management for companies, increasingly aware of the need to meet the expectations of their stakeholders:
- Shareholders wishing to secure the strategy and management of the business
- Customers want to promote sustainable development through their purchases and reassurance on products
- Suppliers seeking to develop partnership relations based on trust
- Employees need training and a healthy work environment, giving meaning to their commitment.
Ethics and business: serenity factor
The skills and ethics of individuals thrive in an organizational environment and managerial structuring. Ethical practices create serenity along-with success. What more can anyone ask for?
That is why the development of ethics and professional competence is accompanied by a reflection on the key roles of management and the processes to implement the cooperation between individuals.
The exemplary management is, in fact, crucial to the success of projects of any company or organization.
Ethics, "tool" of management?
In terms of management, it seems to me that there are three main levers to deploy an ethical approach and articulate performance.
- The first lever refers to what I call the cultural control - again, each of the terms can generate debate: ethics is a management and monitoring tool; and as long as we do not dare to say things and call them by name, one will have worries, since people are not fooled. Ethics is a means of reviewing, based on predictability of behavior, readability.
- The second lever, which I could measure the importance of working professions - care professions, business purchases, sales, management is the need for benchmarks and support tools for decision making.
- The last lever, which is very important in management in general and local management in particular, as in relations with the company's external environment (sale, purchase), is the ability to generate confidence.
An ethical approach: What are the Conditions for Success?
Under what conditions an ethical approach is effective and likely to succeed?
• It must first articulate the ethical approach to business strategy, and it's not so easy.
• Very Important - Ethical approach is collaborative, based on the co-construction of content.
• The establishment of assessment tools: the problem of the evaluation was little attention, since ethics is regarded as non-assessable in nature.
Corporate Ethics and Company Stress
We always talk about ethics as something positive, but ethics can be very stressful, especially for employees, because of the uncertainty. This process is difficult to implement and limits freedom to look for ‘short-cuts’ in areas of real uncertainty.
It therefore becomes very essential for the leader to ensure that ethical way of working flows from top to bottom and open communication channels are encouraged so that the entire team works as a cohesive unit towards achieving profitability and community benefit at the same time.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Where do Indian companies stand?
Indian companies including Flipkart, Snapdeal or even MNCs like Amazon or Ebay have not done anything considerable when it comes to CSR. All these companies should be looking at contributing more to the society, especially when there are so many areas India could need professional and financial help on(from the private sector).All companies are spending huge amount of money on advertising about their Online Sales and Offers in Indian Newspapers and Indian TV Channels. Many companies including Amazon.in are now sponsoring reality shows. If they could divert some funds to social causes, they will not only win consumers, they will become pioneers in a trend other companies are bound to follow. Diwali is coming up and if companies can look at more CSR and less ad spend, it could be a deal maker!
