In order to illustrate the usage of ethics in a business environment, recruitment is a relevant aspect of an organization to analyze. The ethical way of hiring should be that the candidate selected should be the one who is expected to contribute the most to the organization’s profit. However, many recruiters have rejected candidates on the basis of irrevelant considerations such as discrimination, overqualification and ageism. Ethnic minorities face many problems in the workplace and a major one of them is hiring. “the selection and recruitment process is biased against them in one form or another” (Arnold et al, 1991, p.77) Although discrimination is essential in the process of recruitment, it should only be used between the abilities of one applicant and all the others. These are usually unrelated to sex, religion, social background, smoking habits... (Sternberg, 2000). Recruiters usually put restrictions on the age range of candidates because “older workers are often criticised for their alleged inability to master new technology” (Moody, 1998, p.14). This is a form of prejudice with the intention of giving the manager an easier time, considering older than average applicants may be overqualified and/or harder to boss around. “The only true way to enforce ethical behavior norms is to select and hire the right people” (Foote, 2002, pg.25) Thus, recruitment is a vital aspect of business and should be accomplished in an ethical manner.
The relevance of management ethics can be assessed by the number of companies that have failed because of unethical conduct. An organization that doesn’t follow business ethics is less likely to succeed; if a business aims for a profitable economic future it must have an understanding of business ethics (Malawchowski, 2000). Many of the dramatic business scandals such as Enron Corp., Adelphia Communications and Tyco are caused by the unethical behaviour of the executives of the company. Enron used accounting practices that inflated its income by $586 million, then the executives told their employees to hold their shares of Enron stock while they sold more than $1 billion of their own. Soon after, the company went bankrupt and more than $60 million was lost by investors(Cohan, 2002). "This is why the market keeps going down every day—investors don't know who to trust. As these things come out, it just continues to build." (Maxwell, 2003, p.1). Managers need to be socially responsible when making decisions as these will influence society and their expectations, the organization’s public image, the environment, their profits, etc... Knowing that so many companies have gone bankrupt because of unethical conduct, it would be nonsensical for businessmen to try to cheat and expect to be rewarded. "If you invested $30,000 in a composite of the Dow Jones thirty years ago, it would be worth $134,000 today. If you had put that $30,000 into these [socially and ethically responsible] firms-$2,000 into each of the fifteen [in the study]-it would now be worth over $1 million." (Maxwell, 2003, p.1) This example indicates that ethically responsible companies will be more likely to have a productive and efficient existence than unethical firms.
In conclusion, management ethics is evidently a key aspect to making an organization successful. The lack of business ethics can amount to business failures and “in almost all cases, ‘bad ethics is bad business’”(Sternberg, 2000, p.19). Management ethics is vital because it is an important business device, it should be fundamental when making decisions and resolving questions of business behaviour. Because of the recent business scandals, public awareness of business ethics has augmented therefore it is essential that firms follow a strict ethical conduct in order to build up public trust.
References
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Arnold, J., Robertson, I.T., Cooper, L.C. (1991) Work Psychology – Understanding human behaviour in the workplace. Longman Group UK, London.
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Sternberg, E. (2000) Just Business- Business in Action. Oxford University Press, UK.
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