Essay

Ethics are codes of conduct that decide what is wrong and what is right in a particular circumstance. If they had not existed, we would not have known which human behaviours are good or bad. For instance, stealing is a bad code of conduct. Therefore, ethics guide humans to behave properly in society. Ethics should also be followed by people doing commerce, but often in the purpose to make more profits businessmen forego their ethics. So, is it always correct to say that ethics and business are fundamentally incompatible? One of the codes of ethics of businesses that deal in food is to make food that is safe to consume. However, nowadays many cases have cropped up where the businesses have been running unethically. For example, in 2009, 9 outlets of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) were closed down in Mauritius as Salmonella bacteria had been found in over 10 tons of seized chicken meat. Yet, the KFC food poisoning is not only a problem in Mauritius, but also in other countries where this fast food exists. In Australia, in 2005, a girl suffered brain damage from salmonella poisoning after eating a chicken twister at KFC. That girl is now confined to a wheelchair. Another recent case of food poisoning is the Marday cake shop one; the incident claimed one life and infected over 100 people. The culprits, Staphylococcus bacteria, were later discovered in the cakes. These bacteria cause mild to severe illnesses. In fact, they produce a toxin, which causes nausea, severe vomiting, dizziness, and abdominal cramping, in dairy products, salads and cakes filled with cream. These cases are loudly screaming the fact that employees are growingly violating business ethics; they are not concerned with the health safety of their own people. Deceptive advertising is another unethical issue becoming rifer nowadays. Many advertisements dishonestly attach less importance to the negative effects of a product and emphasize only on its benefits to increase sales. There are innumerable instances to illustrate this, but one famous example is the coca cola advertisement. They include everything in the commercial: well-known footballers, stars and even “Father Christmas”. All this noise is made for only sugar and colour dissolved in carbonated water. Coca cola has no nutritive value except for carbohydrates. Besides, a can of coke contains approximately 10 teaspoons of sugar and its continuous overconsumption can lead to diseases like diabetes. This unscrupulous practice in the pharmaceutical industry can cost people their lives. The case of Merck Company is more prominent; it advertised Vioxx as a painkiller, but constantly buried the fact that the drug could cause heart attack. The Wall Street Journal published emails of the company showing clearly that the latter was well aware of the health risks of its drug as from 2000, but concealed this information from the public. A study from the Food and Drugs Administration revealed that Vioxx led to an estimate of 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths. The company went even far by threatening scientists to suppress the negatives effects of its drug. As evidence, we have Gurkirpal Singh, a Stanford University researcher, who was threatened by the company to stop going against the drug, the contrary of which will cause him to lose his job.
Pornography is a business where the latter and ethics do not co-exist at all. It is indeed a big business with gigantic revenues. In fact, this industry generates higher incomes than that of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined together and according to a statistics in 2006, worldwide pornography revenues was $97.06 billion. However, many religions preach that the act of sexual procreation should occur between married couples only and in that sense pornography is immoral because it involves copulation between unmarried people. The sex industry usually arouses a person's lust, but lust is one among the 7 sins of the Bible. A business that uses child labour is ethically wrong. As reported by a recent statistics, some 250 million children are engaged as child labourers. This figure is clearly giving a hint about the number of businesses around the globe that are using children for their own benefits. Child labour deprives a young person from universal schooling. Besides, the exploitation of children under the age of 18 is illegal in many countries. Numerous industries, especially in India, employ children to make carpets, fireworks, clothes and glasses. They choose to work with kids due to one prominent reason: the children are given very low wages for their long hours of work, and these poor creatures do not even ask for a pay raise like adults; thus the businessmen make more profit since the costs of production of the particular goods become very low. The working conditions are pitiful and sometimes present a great deal of danger for the children; for example, in the firework factories they can risk explosions. A morally responsible company must pay special attention to humane working conditions and not force their employees to work for several hours at a stretch. Nonetheless, it is not always right to say that business and ethics are fundamentally incompatible. Actually, many a times, ethics contributes to a company’s success. In fact, in a free and competitive market, the desire for profit often brings about ethics in business; a phrase which is well expressed by the dictum ‘good business results in good ethics’. The explanation is very simple: in general, customers demand safe goods and will only purchase from the businesses that meet their demands. If the business wants to survive along with making profit, it has to heed these demands. And in the process, ethics is brought about in the business and make the latter more lucrative. Sometimes, businessmen fail to recognise how business and ethics can work perfectly like bread and butter. If, for an example, a business treats his employees well, then it will never be in a loss. The workers will have a pleasant environment to work in which will result in great productivity for the commerce. In addition, if the employees are treated properly they will refrain from doing deceitful activities such as stealing goods from their own workplace or even swindling money from the business; such activities will obviously be disastrous for the business as well as stressful for the business owner. Moreover, a business which treats its workforce well is often equated to a business with a good image. Once a company has pinned a good image then no one can stop its number of customers from skyrocketing since it is often observed that once the image of a business is tarnished its customers start looking elsewhere for the same product or service. Businessmen normally fear lawsuits since this drain them financially. So, this fear causes them to run their business in an ethical way so as to avoid as many law trials as possible. In 2008, Primark, a British clothing firm, fired three Indian suppliers because they used child labour to make clothes. This happened when the BBC’s Panorama programme made the discovery after a 6-month investigation and alerted Primark on the matter. Child labour is illegal and moreover, according to Primark’s codes of practice for suppliers, it is against the use of child labour in its manufacturing chain. Hence, the firm took this decision to stay away from lawsuits. At the present time, ethics is not only followed in business, but is also part of law. As part of the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002, enterprise directors have to sign an ethics declaration in order to protect their shareholders from accounting errors and treacherous practices in the company. This legislation of the United States was enacted followed by the Enron and WorldCom financial scandals in 2002. Financial executives at WorldCom employed various techniques to hide expenses for a period of more than two years just to give the impression of growth in order to attract investors. By the same token, pressure groups exist that coerce businesses to keep a good ethical track. Direct consumer action is another method used by customers to defy the ethics of a business. They can take action against businesses that they believe to be irresponsible or immoral, for example, companies dealing with animal furs. All these eternal pressures cause a business to unwillingly act fairly.
Though, the statement ‘ethics and business are fundamentally incompatible’ reflects more the truth currently, there are cases to show that this statement is not always right. It will be beneficial for the business itself if it operates wisely with ethics. However, the decision to implement ethics in the business lies only in the hands of the businessmen. As a matter of fact, a righteous person will make an ethical business; so, we cannot set a theorem that ethics and business cannot co-exist when we have evidence that the contrary is happening.

Assignment: "Ethics and Business are fundamentally incompatible"
Critically analyse the above statement with reference to contemporary examples.

Name: Urvashi Hurhundee

Student ID: 1113829

Course: Bsc (Hons) Actuarial Studies

Submitted to: Ms M Naidoo-Soobrayen

Number of words: 1472