Generalization about the business environment

1. I believe that we have to carefully approach any generalization about the business environment because while the industry has recently been faced with a lot of negative ethical media attention, there are some honest companies out there. In that aspect though, it might be a benefit if all business people have an oath to abide by. If you think about it, many professions have similar oaths. Doctors, lawyers, architects and other professional disciplines that oaths that all deal with ethics at their core. This provides a baseline for those in the same industry to use as their guide moving forward in the business. It is unfortunate that some of the logical items/ambles of the oath, such as "act with upmost integrity" is not practiced by business professionals on a default basis. There should be no question that every action should be based on integrity. In my career, I have come across unethical managers and CEO's who, for example, billed personal expenses to their corporate accounts. This is self-serving and unethical, but having a reinforced oath might make them think twice.

2. When some individuals in the business environment function according to ethical rules and others do not, it creates a discrepancy in the industry. First of all, just like how attorney's have a self-disciplining authority, I believe the business environment should have one too. This can allow the public to look up any unethical disciplinary action by unethical business individuals. However, I personally think that people who do ethical business will succeed solely based on establishing confidence between their clients and him or herself as long as the person consistently abides by the ethical standards of honesty and integrity.

3. Lack of full compliance will hurt the general business environment because 99% of the time, the negative stories always end up surfacing in media reports or outlets. For example, for every Bernie Madoff's out in the business environment, there may be thousands of other ethical individuals that don't make the news. But when one unethical person is not in full compliance with ethical guidelines it surfaces quickly. Similarly, when an individual cheats in school, it causes some ethical students to despise that individual and not want to trust that person or work with them when they are working hard to earn the grade that they deserve.

4. Ethics education is trying to accomplish a broad goal of informing students/professionals about what is ethical or not. It's very difficult to instill ethics in an individual who grew up without some morals. An ethics course may not change this person, but it will provide this person a source of what is considered ethical actions with those that are not. And for the majority of business professionals, it continually reminds them of their duty to remain ethical in a very competitive business environment. It might even be a good idea to post the ethical ambles in an office wall so that it is constantly reminds everyone in the office of their duties.