Week 4, Video 1 Script RMIT
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cation:
Week 4 Video Truste
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1 – Ethics in
the World of Business
Hello everyone! Most of us will agree that ethics is an especially important facet of
organizational life, regardless of our profession, and our business roles. Indeed, we
choose whether to work for companies, or whether to purchase certain products, based
on their reputation. We want to explore how an ethical organization comes about.
To do this, we first need to examine our individual roles, both as members of society and
also as members of organisations. Roles are created to serve society better as a whole.
We are familiar with roles in society, such as those know as fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters, and friends.
Indeed, if we reflect on our own moral, or ethical values, it would be worth listing out
those who played a pivotal role in teaching or showing us the right behaviours, and
these are likely to be our parents, guardians, siblings, and friends.
A well-designed system of roles, with accompanying rights and obligations, enables
society to achieve more, and thereby benefits for everyone. Some of these obligations
relate to social norms, and these social norms are based on moral or ethical standards.
Members of society observe one another, and express their approval or disapproval
over our display of ethical or unethical behaviours.
People in certain positions have responsibilities to many different societal groups and
hence must consider a wide a wide range of interests. Later, we will discuss the
theoretical foundations of how members of society agree to these common sets of
rights and obligations.
Some societies have clear figureheads, who guide their collective moral outlook.
Confucianism is one such example, where filial piety, and the roots of humanness form
the foundation and origin of morality, and become integral to belonging to a society; all
social notions of morality are extensions of family ethics. The messages of
Confucianism, whose messages of knowledge, benevolence, loyalty, and virtue were the
main guiding philosophy of China for thousands of years.
What appears on your screen is an actual Singapore ministerial statement, delivered in
1998.
Government scholars in Singapore were meant to serve an 8-year bond in the civil
service. However, increasing numbers of scholarship holders terminated their bonds, in
pursuit of other employment opportunities and more pay, before completing their
service with the public service. This was seen to be an undesirable trend and the
scholars earned a ministerial rebuke.
“... when a scholar breaks a bond, it is not just a matter of contracts and liquidated
Week 4, Video 1 Script RMIT
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damages. It involves deeper issues of cation: right and wrong, moral integrity, a sense
of shame at breaking a solemn Truste personal undertaking. It is not just a legal,
but also a moral obligation. There is a d qualitative difference between the two.
Without the moral sense of duty to family, friends and society, no society can thrive.”
This quote talks about “deeper issues of right and wrong, moral integrity, the sense of
shame and moral duty to family, friends, and duty to society.
How many times has “moral” been repeated?
As a student of business ethics, you should reflect on whether “morality” is used in the
same context as that which you live in.
Regardless of whether we use the term “morality” or “ethics”, organisations are a part
of society. Organisational boundaries cannot separate or protect organisational
members from wrongdoing.
Some of the societal expectations, or social norms and obligations, also filter into
organisations. Indeed, it is a two-way flow. Some organisations can also set social norms
for example, when we see organisations initiating or taking the lead, or setting the
example through corporate social responsibility.
However, with increasing public scrutiny, wrongdoing by organisations also appear to be
commonplace.
Wrongdoing in companies is often attributed to the proverbial “bad apple” – An
individual who knows an action is wrong, but does it anyway, someone who is amoral or
immoral.
This can sometimes be misleading as an analysis of the causes of bad conduct. For
example, when misconduct is widespread in an organization, as is often the case in
major scandals, it is not plausible to believe that dozens if not hundreds of people are all
“bad apples”.
What, therefore, guides businesses and organisations in making ethical decisions?
Many organisations have an agreed Code of Conduct, which is based broadly on
business ethics.
So, it therefore, is important for students to first appreciate some Ethics foundations, or
theories, that guide Modern Codes of Conduct. This is the following video.
Given how important ethics is, students should not be fearful of ethics philosophy, so we
hope you will benefit from answering the review questions that follow.
Later, we will make this point again – when we study about business ethics, it is easy to
us to be careless and say, “it won’t happen to the business I work for”; let us approach
this topic with an open mind.
Thank you for listening.
Week 4, Video 1 Script RMIT
Classifi
cation:
Truste
d