No Such Thing as Business Ethics

Are you shocked? Everyone wants their business contacts to conduct business ethically. How could a business advisor suggest otherwise?

Well, let me ask you a different question. What is the differences between Ethics and Business Ethics? We live in a world today that wants to parse and compartmentalize every aspect of life. We have moved into a post-modernism mentality that eschews the idea of absolutes. We are reduced to moral relativism which then requires we define terms for each separate venue of our lives ... hence business ethics.

How would you define the term? Wikipedia defines business ethics as a form of applied ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. Now there is an interesting term - applied ethics. What good are ethics which are not applied? Are ethics not supposed to produce a certain result in your actions? How are these problems of business different than from other areas of life. Am I to be honest in my personal dealings with you, but in a business deal be ok to shade the truth? How about in meeting commitments to others. Does the cloak of business change the level of my responsibilities to others?



There is a very interesting story from the 80's about a Japanese firm's first sale to a US corporation. The US company, in it's order, set an AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) of 95%. As you may know, the AQL states how many defective parts will be accepted in an order before the order is rejected as not conforming to the contract specifications. In this case, the products manufactured by the Japanese firm arrived in two boxes. Along with the boxes was a note from the Japanese CEO. It thanked the US company for their business. The CEO then said that there was some confusion over the order, but the Japanese company had reworked 5% of the product to make it defective, and those defective products were packaged separately.



The Japanese company had an ethic of conforming exactly to specifications! As your business friend, I would encourage you to swap business ethics for just ethics. Be consistent and dedicated to doing what is right. Your business will be blessed for it.