Delve a bit deeper and one would find that the eponymous question implicitly points to the more genric question : how relevant are ethics for a human being? Because the only change is the domain or the context one is talking about else everything remians the same. Business ethics concern an organisation in the way it works and ethics concern a person in the way he chooses to live his life. Though on first glance it seems less likely that an ethical person will turn out to be a non ethical manager but considering a much smaller domain enveloped by the former it may well be the case.
An insight into the bigger spectrum called life reveals that the society during the course of evolution has put in place various institutions upon which is bestowed the responsibility of monitoring the ethical behavior of human beings. From the time we start taking cognizance of the facts around us the institutions at different stages of our life assume the responsibility of ingraining in us the well accepted virtues and the vices . Normally some of the do's and do not's are willingly accepted and there by followed by us while some we learn the hard way. By hard way I refer to all the punishment that we get on stealing a petty thing or lying for a small cause and the likes of the same. Sometimes we get the punishment at the hands of individuals like parents, teachers and some other time it is the society at large that gets into the act of cleansing.
Reflecting on the smaller domain “corporate world” one easy finding is that though the protagonist remains essentially the same, the environment in which he breathes has a different makeover. No matter how much the doyens of the industry talk about creating wealth for all or promote the much heard cliche corporate social responsibility the basic premise has remained the same : Profit Maximization. Without debating the ulterior motives of an organisation let us focus on the core issue :do managers really need to compromise on business ethics? Time and again the question has been answered in negation with history being replete with examples of downfall of organisations which essentially compromised on business ethics.
It is the myopic view that cripples the management’s decision making abilities and propel them to resort to Machiavellian tactics essentially signaling‘ends justifies the means and not the vice versa’. What they fail to take into account is the long term sustainability of such means and the demise of Enron and Arthur Anderson substantiate the argument.
Even as far as the practicability of the ethically run business is concerned it is very much viable, just that one has to wait for right opportunities and has to be suitably equipped to confront the opponent. Well the opponents to this point of argument may suggest that time lag in waiting for opportunities or getting well equipped might erase one out of the competition. And the answer to this lies in a multi pronged strategy some of the constituents of which may include :broadening the horizon of growth, nurturing the creative minds and ensuring that other involved parties do not falter. This brings us to the last but equally significant issue pertaining to the role played by the government elected statutory bodies who are supposed to monitor the functioning of an organisation. Ironically it is the malfunctioning of these watchdogs that has resulted into a situation where managers have an option to choose between ethical and non ethical means.
Nevertheless we ought to remember that though humans do err but it is the inevitable fall of unethical organisations that is never under doubt.
