What constraints do business managers in (your) society face, or are likely to face, in their attempts to improve corporate excellence? Illustrate your discussion with some organization(s) with which you are familiar.

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‘Successful companies place a great deal of emphasis on ethics as a guide to effective decision-making’.

What constraints do business managers in (your) society face, or are likely to face, in their attempts to improve corporate excellence? Illustrate your discussion with some organization(s) with which you are familiar.

INTRODUCTION

In today’s world, especially in Kenya where taxes and competition is very high and the economy is not strong, businesses are forced to behave unethically so as to attain a competitive edge over others, keep the business alive or to simply make more out of their businesses even though they might personally feel that certain actions being carried out are unethical. Every manager wants their business to behave ethically but are coerced to promote unethical behavior by the need to survive in this tight economy. They tend to weight their actions in deciding whether to carry them out in terms of business profits. Unfortunately, in Kenya, businesses that make more money are considered successful even though they widely practice unethical behavior. This itself tends to promote bad ethics in businesses. Politics also tends to influence business ethics.


ANALYSIS AND CRITIQUE

I have worked in an organization for two years, and have noticed a lot of unethical behavior. This behavior did not arise from personal morals and values but was coerced by interpersonal relationships and opportunities that came out in terms of competition and internal politics being the main factors contributing to bad business ethics. In fact personal ethics of managers and employees have been really good.

Economists say that competition is very healthy for the economy but in terms of ethics, from my observation, competition has been one of the major factors to the promotion of bad business ethics. Managers tend to look at competition as a great threat to their businesses and this makes them carry out actions such as tax evasion. Tax evasion is not only due to competition though, is it the constitution that placed such high taxes that forces them to do so.

For tax evasion, a company might as well ask their accountant to rearrange figures to show less profit or even a loss. The accountant in turn gets a reward to keep it to themselves. This promotes the employees unethical behavior. After all, if times are bad, the accountant needs to keep their job even it means going against your own morals.

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Also, corruption in the governmental sector inhibits good business ethics because businesses tend take advantage of such situations and bribe the government to get away with things like tax evasion. Again, it was the businesses that are coerced in to doing so because their competitors are doing it or because if they don’t, the business can close down; so evidently they choose to be act utilitarian in this case by keeping the business alive and hence keeping jobs for many employees.

On an average, the college I have been working in, has evaded taxes amounting to approximately six ...

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