by Milton Johanides

Created on: October 06, 2009

Too often ethics is sacrificed on the altar of fast profits. It is a sad but real fact of modern business life that money and profits are the driving force of business and not morality and environmental awareness. We can talk all day about the harm we are doing the environment with our business activities, but back in the office, the talk is all about pushing up that bottom line. At best we can expect a new window display from the big corporations. If nothing else, the bosses are now aware that the public want to see commitment to fair play, reasonable bonuses, environmentally friendly strategies, eco-friendly product, ethnically balanced employment, and so on. So if we are to see a shift in future it will be to a new front. A company's image at least must reflect ethical integrity for without it they will be pilloried by the new age consumer. But pity the poor middle manager who has to walk the plank between the sharks of environmental groups and the deep sea of corporate negative profits. Someone somewhere in every organisation must somehow pull off a balancing act between acting with integrity and still producing record sales, record profits. It is not going to be an easy task.

Perhaps it is time for a new sort of management, one that appreciates that the future belongs to those brave enough to embrace social change. If consumers change faster than some companies are prepared for, there will be casualties in boardrooms in every country. Keeping track of consumer aspirations is, as it always has been, key to this. But the difference now is that with all the new technology available to every man and his dog in every corner of the globe, consumer aspirations can change overnight. Corporate strategies cannot. For example, one conversation that will be going on in boardrooms everywhere is how to retain big bonuses in the light of the post recessionary backlash. Companies have a choice: risk losing top management by cutting back on bonuses and winning brownie points from the public, or carry on paying the bonuses through a back door nobody has even thought of yet. I know where I would put my money, but perhaps I'm just too cynical. The solution to this dilemma is being able to predict where the public will be on the issue in six months' time. Will they lose interest, as they did with the war in Iraq adn Afghanistan, or will it be even more of a hot potato then than it is now? Tough call.

In general, businesses will not try and repair something that is not broken. As long as sales stay firm, there will be no change regardless of ethical ambitions. It is only when a great overhaul occurs, as in the recent global financial collapse, or perhaps a sudden rise in sea levels resulting in multiple fatalites, will real change occur. On the one hand, the global bailout was a relief, but on the other, it has handed the ball back to the team with all the faults. Letting the banks go to the wall would have given the business community a perfect opportunity for real and lasting change. Instead of which I think it's the same game; profits, not ethics.

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