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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

2 of 7

Profits

by Alex Kee

"It's the Profits, stupid!" would be the only honest answer you get from the business owner if you ever dare asked the obvious about the raison d'etre of a business organization.

However, having said that, even for an organization whose very existence is built upon nothing but the purpose to make profits, ought business ethics be push to the back burner?

My take is, empirically, in this day and age of Information Technology and the free flowing of information on a global scale on a 24/7, 365days basis, doom is the ultimate destiny for any organization, business especially, if ethics are chronically sacrificed in the quest for profits.

Therefore, for the long term sustainability of the business organization, due care and diligence ought to be placed in adhering to at least a minimum level of corporate citizen decency to project a less than malicious profit grabbing ogre company, something business owners will do well to be mindful of.

If businesses manage to at least portray in the eyes of the public, a perception of an image of non malign corporate responsibility in that businesses exist to make profits in order to be viable and sustainable, any reasonable consumer can accept this.

Any reasonable person knows that the organizations that serve him with goods and services ought to be viable to continue to be sustainable and the fault is not in the making of profits per se but how the profits are made, at what cost, real and hidden; legal and as well as ethical.

If the basic concern and expectation management of the public perception with regard to the adherence and upholding of ethics against the greedy obsession to make profits at any and all cost have been addressed, then making profits as far as corporate objectives are concerned ought to be of paramount importance, naturally.

The argument as to whether business ethics or profits are more important therefore ought not be a dilemma.

Businesses that had to constantly pit profit objectives against business ethics ought to reexamine its very vision, mission and business objectives to see if they really have a place in the modern competitive and globalized marketplace.

The question of deciding over to do or not to do something on reasons of ethics over profits and vice-versa ought not to arise at all.

If a business is engaged in activities that are constantly in conflict with business ethics and though it may be engaged in legitimate legal business activities, it can nevertheless be rendered history should consumer opinion turn against it through the cash register.

In conclusion, there is no question that businesses exist to make profits, but if the foundation where it stands on is not built on solid basic decent ethical material, it is built on sand. Sooner if not later, the tide of consumer sentiments will turn and it will be brought down in tsunamic proportion.