Business >

Are business ethics or profits more important?

This Debate has 18 articles on the Ethics side and 7 articles on the Profits side. Click here to see all the articles rated and ranked by Helium members.

Ethics

Profits

1 of 18

Ethics

Ethics and profits are not mutually exclusive. Although it is true that you can make a profit by acting unethically, such a profit is useless if your reputation is destroyed in the process. If your reputation is destroyed you lose all chance that you have at producing reoccurring profits. As such, unless you have another line of work in mind, acting unethically could financially cost you your business. Additionally, many professional jobs have specific codes of ethical conduct. A violation of one of these codes of ethical conduct could cost you your professional license. In addition to the loss of your professional license, the profits you obtained from your unethical conduct could be disgorged. Therefore, not only could you lose your license, but you could also lose your profits obtained due to the unethical conduct.

In business, your reputation counts for a lot. When you are attracting new clients and/or new customers, most of the time it is your reputation that is the attracting factor. Much new business is obtained through referrals and as such, your referrer must be able to honestly vouch for your ethical behavior. If you act unethically, your reputation as well as the reputation of your referrer is destroyed. Therefore, you can expect to have less business and fewer profits.

Practically speaking, if you do a good job for your clients and are ethical and honest throughout the entire process, your client will have no reason to complain about your work or your conduct. As such, you can expect positive reviews and more business. It is that simple. Unfortunately, many people believe that you have to operate in a "shady" manner in order to get business done. Others believe that you have to screw an opponent in order to get the deal that you want. However, if you are the better business person and you are the more educated and harder working business person, your reputation should lead clients to your door.

I want to clarify that competing for a client can be done with acting unethically. You can emphasize your strengths over your competitor and downplay the abilities of your competitor in a non-insulting manner. This is most likely not unethical. However, when you resort to name calling, sabotage, and "mud-slinging" in order to draw customers into your door, you are not only hurting the business of your competitor, but you are also hurting your own business.

Put simply, unethical behavior will cost you your profits and your business. Therefore, even though you need profits to survive in the world of business, without ethical behavior, it will be difficult to sustain any kind of a living.