by Juan Leer

Created on: January 29, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2009

With the past failures of large companies such as Enron and Worldcom, ethics are more important than ever in the business world. The accounting profession realized this was the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but what exactly is the relationship between business and ethics? What is ethics? What is business ethics? According to Noah Webster, ethics is "A set of principles of right conduct." Another definition, according to Wikipedia, "Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial context; the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting." According to the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), "Business ethics is the application of ethical values to business behavior."

But as with anything, gray areas can apply where you might not be sure how to best handle a situation according to proper business ethics. For example, let's say that hypothetically you are the manager of a department. There is one worker that is more talented than the others, but he has also caused disturbances recently, causing more than one worker to file complaints against this worker. However, you are reluctant to take any action against this worker because he is such a good worker, and you know that he is married with kids who depend on the salary he earns from the job.

This is a gray area because if you go "by the book," the right thing to do is probably to fire him based on the number of complaints from others. However, there may be work-related and personal reasons you don't want to fire him he is the best worker, and his family needs the money. It's a gray area because firing him would be best from a people standpoint, but not as good from a business standpoint.

In this situation, I would probably lay this worker off, as tough as it would be. While it would be tough losing my best worker, especially when it may hurt him a great deal from a family standpoint, if there are multiple complaints against someone, they really leave you no choice. While it's not fun to do, it's the only way to maintain "ethical values" in the office.

I interviewed my sister Amanda, a manager at Abra Autobody and Glass and asked her two questions: what is her definition of business ethics, and what would she do in the hypothetical situation proposed? First, she talked about why business ethics are so important in her job when she said, "Business ethics is especially important in my accounting work, for everything needs

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