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Ethics is often referred to as a grey area, especially
when we talk about it in correlation with business. However those who are
adamant that ethics should be integral part of business opine that ethics
though is an abstract concept, should be put forth as Blank and White area.
Most of the time people are aware about what is ethical and what is not.
However what is that very thing which drive people away from being ethical? Let’s
analyses.
Reference Cases:
1) After I enter into my MBA class, it is implied that
cell phones should be kept silent or switched off. This was strictly followed
during some of the earlier classes. However, after some days, we started using
cellphones within class for messaging, using email and internet etc. Since this
act wasn't being interrupted by faculty members, there was more lax. And
finally some of us started even receiving calls in classes.
2) Our hostel mess serves single banana per meal. But as
I am fond of it, I am keen to get some extra bananas. But this is not possible
in ethical way. So I started to take one right in the beginning(and have it)
and another right after lunch saying that I didn't take it previously. And what
next, I even tried getting more when the mess servers are busy.
What generalization we can develop from these two simple
real life cases is that "being unethical is a gradual process and if
unethical behavior is not checked/interrupted, we tend to become more
unethical".
Why is it so?
A person who commits small unethical act will be
motivated when he/she performs that task. This will bring on him/her a sense of
achievement or accomplishment because of being able to disobey the law. It will
also enhance on you a feeling that you won't get caught and it's easier for you
to master such unethical practices. It will make the doer
comfortable about that, and before you know, it snowballs into something
vehemently large. This tendency of committing one unethical task after another
will lead to a vicious cycle of being unethical and we become a total corrupt.
Though I assume that whether you commit a small degree of
unethical activity or a huge degree of unethical activity, the jurisdiction is
the same: you end up doing something unethical. However, it is the society that
defines whether an activity is ethical is or not, based on the perception of
the larger size of the population. So sometimes society may forgive small
degree of unethical practices as being a normal act. But we should be conscious
of whether or not that lax has been promoting our society to be more unethical.
Many of the business scandal that were followed in recent
history follow the same trend. They being from something small and finally end
up with something really uncontrollable unethical practices. While they manage
to cheat something small in one round, they might be willing to cheat a bit
more in another round and most likely a really a big in the upcoming rounds.
And this is because of the organization's behavior of not paying attention
to the small issues signaling that it is willing to tolerate a level of
questionable behavior. For reference:
- Modoff
Ponzi scheme started when he covered relatively small financial losses.
Later on, over the period of 15 years, the scam grew in manifold time and
finally reaching a galloping figure of $65 billion.
- The same
is in case for World Phone hacking scandal.
- Collapse
of Enron etc
The beginning of most corrupt practices is a lower one.
Most of the time we begin with small practices like taking away of office
equipment, hiking of transportation expenses, labeling of personal meeting as
official visit and son on. And this trend can be identified as a serious
problem for the future of the business world. The case is more serious (and
interesting) as a recent survey conducted by ethics.org reveals the following
findings:
- About 73 %
of surveyed Americans employed full time reported ethical lapses on the
job, 36% said they were distracted by such an incident.
- Young
workers, from 18-34, reported substantially higher levels of witnessing
ethical lapses and being distracted than middle-aged and older workers.
As such we can observe it vividly that if we do not take
proper corrective actions/measures instantly, the future of business world and
the society in which we will be jeopardized and our ethical and moral standards
will degenerate.
References:
Ethics.org
Hbr.org
World Forum For Ethics in Business
(for reference
about systematic procedure to address unethical practices in an organization,
refer to another BlogSpot on ethics)
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