Ethical Lapses in Today's Business

Ethical Lapses in Today's Business World Today, there is widespread worry and fear that the business world is lapsing into a state where the question of maintaining certain 'ethics' in all the numerous transactions and business dealings by the participants, with each other is being lost. A decade earlier Amitai Etzioni, Professor at the George Washington University, made a study of court and other public documents in relation to the Fortune 500 companies. He was of the opinion that 62% of the 500 corporations in the U.S.

had involvement in one or more illegal incidents; 42% were involved in two or more and 15% were involved in five or more illegal dealings during the years from 1975 and 1984. These incidents had the inclusion of "price-fixing, overcharging, domestic and foreign bribes, fraud and deception and patent infringements" among other illegal activities.

(Williams, 1) According to the Gallup Survey data from 1976 till the 1990 states that at least one-fifth and as many as half of the Americans believe that the business executives of the corporations do not exhibit the required minimum levels of honesty standards. These beliefs show that the world of business and the business executives are having a crisis of confidence in their activities.

(Manley, Schrode, 235) The Wall Street Journal has conducted a survey in 2000 on the issue of ethical lapses by companies and the findings prove that the worry is not unfounded; it was discovered that 79% of young Americans are of the belief that there are no actual absolute standards as far as ethics and honest dealings is concerned.

Such lapses in ethics do have an adverse effect on the business world, and even if they happen to be small and minute lapses, they do tend to snowball over a period of time so that when taken in the context of long-term business dealings, the lapse in ethics will impact not only the trust between the employees of the concern, but will also travel upwards, where the basic trust and confidence between the employee and the supervisor is also breached.

And then the trust between the various different divisions of the company becomes corroded, and, finally, not only do the productivity and the efficiency of the employees undergo a drastic change for the worse, but so does the loyalty of the employees towards the firm.

(Ethics in Business) By this point of time, there will be quite a few major breaches of trust, and employees start to feel that they can steal from the company, and the eventuality is that the firm and basic trust that a company needs to have with its clients is eroded, and when the trust is gone, the company has no other option but to suffer the losses that this would entail.

The question of ethics within a company has gone almost completely ignored until this point of time, mainly because of the fact that 'ethics' is a misunderstood topic, and it has become confused with moral and political issues.

In addition, since the question of ethics is extremely personal, it is difficult to recognize ethics when it is present, and most people who do follow a strict code of ethics do go unrecognized, as well as unacknowledged, and maybe this gives rise to a feeling among other employees that it is not so very important to be honest and truthful. However, today, most business leaders have come to recognize the fact that ethics in business must be given a great amount of importance.

Most companies are today setting up certain 'ethical codes of conduct', which the employees, right from the top echelons, are expected to follow; in fact, it is considered a business imperative to follow a code of ethics within the various operations of the firm.

(Ethics in Business) What prompted this sort of measure was the fact that not only were quite a few companies suffering losses from the breach of trust that the lack of ethics was inflicting, but also because of the fact hat investors and consumers were also suffering.

The recent wave of scandals that rose from the series of frauds and the feeling of a lack of ethics among the top personnel in companies on Wall Street that came to light has brought the attention of the entire world on the changing ethics in the major companies of today, and this has led to a need to change this trend and bring ethics in business back to the forefront.

(a New Regard for Ethics on the Job) When Enron wanted to develop its company, and became involved in the concept of the 'new growth model', it was decided that the company would only take the lower road to attaining profits and to expand its business.

(Geisst, 398) Kenneth Lay, one of the most important people of Enron, in other words, the Chairman and the Chief Executive had to prepare to appear before the Court in order to prove his innocence and proper behavior according to the existing code of ethics followed by any company of Enron's standing, which had come under question in 2002.

(Enron Lapses and Corporate Ethics) What was his crime, and what was he accused of? Kenneth Lay was accused, in a 11 count indictment, of lying to the public, including investor in the company, and also of indulging in 'wire frauds', as well as in 'security' frauds, and in making false statements to the general public. He then pleaded.