ETHICS IN BUSINESS A MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT

This project studies the managerial perspective to ethics in business. It studies that tactics and strategies of management in the promotion of ethical behaviour.

The research has as its objectives

i.      Identification of the internal structures that promote ethics.

ii.     Identification on how this structures help in the weighing of ethical values.

iii.     Evaluation of the managerial respond to ethical issues. To aid the research, primary and secondary data were collected from various sources.

The primary data were collected through questionnaires while secondary data were collected from published and unpublished works.

The researcher used this data collected to make findings and recommendations, some of which are,

i.      Nigerian managers are yet fully appreciate the value, need and essence of ethics in business.

ii.     Most companies have confused line of controlling ethical behaviour.

iii.     Most workers do not know what their companies require of

them in the area of ethics in business.

iv.  Reward/punishment  is  not  vigorously  pursued  by management in the controlling of ethical behaviour.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Business ethics  is  defined by  the  interaction of  ethics  and business. At its broadcast level, it studies the possible moral justification of economic systems. At a secondary level it studies the business corporations as entity with conscience. Thirdly it evaluates the morality of individual and their actions in economic and business transactions. A corporation can only be as the people who own, manage and work for it, but its organization and practice which can in turn be reinforced or impeded by the larger systems of which it is

part.

Business is a social activity and like all social activities cannot function unless certain moral pre-requisites are fulfilled.

The dissociation of management from ownership took place at the same time that laws regulating business proliferated. As a result, it was natural for those who were managing firms to feel that what society and stockholders of their company required of them a compliance with the law. If they complied with the law, they began to feel that morality was personal, that is varied from person to person and from group to group, and that all that could be expected of managers of business as well as it self was mere adherence to the law. Equating what is required of business a convenient and norm to adopt.  It  made  clean  one’s  duty  and  limited  what  one  had  to consider.

This view fails to consider carefully the relationship between law and morality. One of the ways to agree that the conduct of the law governs its immoral and seriously harmful to the society. For instance discrimination was immoral before it was made illegal but not all laws are moral defensible. Laws requiring racial segregation and discrimination are a case in point.

To abide by the law in practicing discrimination was, infancy, to act immorally. The retreat to law as a sole norm to guide business is in part a reflection of the fact that most managers do not know how to handle many moral issues in business. Having equated morality with personal opinion they understandably find it difficult to defend their moral judgments in objective terms.

The retreat to law, together with a disclaimer concerning moral

demand, is frequent not a reflection to bad will or of a desire to be immoral. Rather, it often reflects the lack of internal structures within a firm to weigh moral as well as consideration. The promotion of ethics in business is basically a management duty. Conceded that the board of directors sets the tone for ethical practices, management sees it as application and promotion.

Taking  a  look  at  the  Nigeria  business  environment,  the presence or lack of ethics in business can be attributed to management. Drucker posts  that  the  new tasks  of  management demand that the managers of tomorrow roots ever action and decision in the bedrock of principles that he leads not only through vision  courage  responsibility  and  integrity.  Hence,  for  today’s

manager the issue ethics is of utmost important, for individuals in business can no longer act as they choose.

Government regulations, decisions and guidelines temper the

moves of the market place. In addition, corporations are asked if not forced to consider the impact of their decision and actions on the environment the public and the common good. Air and water are no longer resources to be freely used. No manufacturer today can ignore the safety of workers and consumers of products.

However, most  business corporations are  not  structured to handle ethical demands. The management of most companies are not equipped, due to lack of structures to weigh values in non monetary terms.

The absence of these structures that promote ethics, has led to

the death of ethics in business. The task of this research work is to examine the managerial perspectives in the promotion of ethics, through a systematic study of management structures that promote ethics.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The presence or absence of ethics in business is determined by the management. How management reacts to ethical issues is a great factor in guiding the employee’s behaviour.

Therefore, it is imperative for management to set the tone for organizational conduct. The approach that is most common and is growing  in  popularity  is  setting  forth  expectation  for  the  whole

organization in  written documents which may  include a  code of ethics.

1.3   OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this research are:

1.     To identify the internal structures that promotes ethics in business concern.

2.     To evaluate how these structures increase the weighing of ethical values by managers.

3.     To evaluate the managerial response to ethical issues.

1.4   RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.     Is code of conduct a good control structure in the promotion of business ethics?.

2.     Does  using the  conduct system in  decision making help controlling ethical behaviour?

3.     Does managerial responsibility ensure accountability?

4.     To  what  extent  is  reward  in  maintaining  high  ethical standard?

5.     To what extent is punishment crucial in maintaining high ethical standard?

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

Since the prevalence feeling among the people of that business corporation are not ethical or better still that there is no room for ethics and business, the need for a study, like this,  that will show

Practices in business cannot be over-emphasized.

Therefore, the significance of this study is, among others, to critically examine the level of managerial involvement in the promotion of ethics in business.

The study endeavour to appraise the manager of the structures

ha  promotes ethics  in  business,  of  the  reasons for  such  ethical behaviour and the benefits of highly principled behaviour.

The study will help business in re-orienting manager from the

abyss of immoral business behaviour under the guise of profit making to higher values of business like corporate conscience, social responsibility and ethical behaviour.

Finally, it will enable manager of corporations know that ethics in business is indispensable and essential for  the sustainance of business concerns.

1.6   DEFINITION OF TERMS

For the purpose of this study, it is worthy that some terms are defined as well be operationally adopted.

ETHICS

Can be defined as a set of rules that define right and wrong conduct. This ethical rule states when behaviour is approved and when it is considered unacceptable and wrong. In a broader sense ethics also include the processes of making distinctions between questions of fact and beliefs, deciding how issues are apply o a situation.

BUSINESS

Here business is used to mean incorporated companies and does not include partnership or sole-trader.

BUSINESS

As a field is defined by the interaction of business and ethics. At its broadest economic level it studies the possible moral justification of economic systems. At a micro level it is the moral evaluation of individual and their actions economic and business transaction.

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