“Ethics is just one of those things that corporations need to consider when making business decisions. Whilst there are many aspects to consider when analysing and understanding the intersection...

ETHICS
    Serial Numbe
    Contents
    Page Numbe
    1.
    Introduction
    1-2
    2.
    Role of Ethics in the Business Decision-Making Processes
    3-6
    3.
    Relative Positioning between what is legal and what is ethical in Decision-Making
    7
    4.
    Conflict between making profit and acting ethically
    8-9
    5.
    Impactof Governance Frameworks on ethical decision making
    10-11
    6..
    Determination of leadership success or failure of in context of ethical decision-making
    12-13
    7.
    Conclusion
    14
    8.
    Referencing
    15
INTRODUCTION
In today’s business environment, the business organisation cannot simply focus on earning the profit but it also has to focus on the business ethics and appropriate policies and practises. The business organisations have to consider the requirements of the consumers and they have to maintain the level of trust. The trust should not only be maintained with the consumers but also with the different participants that exist in the market. The organisation has obligations towards the society as a whole and profit cannot be the only motivating factor for the organisations. The organisation should consider its responsibility towards the following:
· Stakeholders
· Customers
· Suppliers
· Society
In the last 30 years, there have been major fraud cases which have forced the government to increase the compliance so that the chances of fraud itself reduce and even the fraudulent practices are conducted, the same can be caught before it hampers the entire society. There have been various laws made for the ethical compliance by the organisations but the ethical behavior cannot be forced. The ethical behavior is a choice that the management and the employees make by themselves. The top management has the responsibility to ensure that the ethics are maintained in the organization. Ethics is the moral choice between the right and the wrong that the organization has to make in the conduct of its business operations (Jalil, A., Azam, F., & Rahman, M. K. (2010))
Business ethics can also be called professional or corporate ethics which checks the moral principles and beliefs of the people working in an organization. The ethical issues can be created within the members of the same organization or with other organization being the suppliers or creditors or customers being debtors. The ethical responsibility creates an obligation on the organisation to conduct its activities properly without the intent of cheating or hurting someone else.
Business ethics comes into play when there is a disagreement between the strategies as planned by the organization and the moral values guided by professional ethics. Sometimes this choice may or may not lead to legal disputes. The legal obligations are way different from the ethical obligation as n case of legal compliances, the organization is enforced by law to do something or not to do something which if not followed may lead to some punishment but there is no such punishment under the ethical obligations and ethical values are voluntary and cannot be enforced same as legal obligations.
ROLE OF ETHICS IN THE BUSINESS DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
The main motto of any business organization is to grow and sometimes for the sake of the benefit of the organization, the management may make some unethical choices which may affect the entire decision-making (Hamington, M., & Sander-Staudt, M. (Eds.)(2011))process in the organization.Business ethics are such rules and standards which are implemented by the people in an organization while making decisions. In the world of globalization when the industries are becoming multinational, the ethical practices have become more important as the reputation of not just the organization but of the whole nation is at stake. For example, in the year 2012, a Chinese company Foxconn who used to supply products to few American companies like Apple, HP, etc. was employing under-aged children for work due to which the companies in other countries were exposed to various risks. Few theories acknowledges that the organizations which follow ethical practices in the business operations will eventually do good business in the long run but the term long run cannot be defined and good business cannot be supported with factual figures.
Not following the ethical business practices may incur losses to the organizations as in the case of SIEMENS where the employees siphoned money from the company which led to a cost of more than 2.5 billion Euros including a fine of 2 billion Euros in the year 2006. It also
ought shame to the employees and the reputation of the company was also hampered. In the case of BBC as well, where BBC was fined for more than 50000 pounds for
each in
oadcasting code.
Ethics can be incorporated into the decision-making process. The following points can be applied for the incorporation of the same:
· The management should investigate and identify the key areas which indicate performers which are or can be linked with the ethical and non-ethical decision-making process.
· The employees should be supported to have a wider vision than just to restrict their scope of the job and allow them to think about the outcome of the actions taken by them.
Following are three critical drivers which aim at the sustainable business in the long run:
1. Return on Capital Employed: It is the most important financial indicator as to what a company can earn from the capital invested in the capital of the company. This indicator reflects the earning capacity of the company and the investors can compare the return from different companies.
2. Leadership Trust: The employee in every organization follows the footsteps of the leader and therefore the leader should have clear conscience about the ethical practices. A trusted leader has the following characteristics:
· Ability
· Benevolence
· Integrity
· Predictability
3. Corporate Reputation: In research, it was found that 52% of the customers prefer buying products and services based on the reputation of the organization and 44% of people did not buy products from organisation just because of the bad reputation of the organization.
The decision-making process incorporating business ethics can be done by following the under-mentioned steps:
· Clarification of the situation: the organization must identify the stakeholders and collect all the relevant facts. The management must check for any legal issues involved with the situation and can such a situation be problematic. The organization must inquire with every person involved and note their intentions as well along with the truth of the situation.
· Evaluation of the situation: The organisation must evaluate all the options available with it and any such possibility which hasn't been thought of. After the identification of the options, the management team should see the upside and downside of every option that was identified. The management should also gain the perspective of the people involved in such options and take up with the best possible option.
· The decision for the course of action:The option selected should have the faith of the entire organisation and then they should gather the courage to go ahead with the right thing. The management team should think of the consequences on the consumers, stakeholders etc.
· Implementation of the decision taken: Once the final decision is taken, the same should be implemented as closely as possible to the targeted decision. The first thing to do in the implementation of the decision is the allocation of the resources and...