IIMA - Being Ethical , livre ebook

Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - S Manikutty Prof

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110 pages

English

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Businesses have to act in self-interest but to what extent should they sacrifice ethical behaviour? The question has become increasingly relevant with the recent high-profile corporate scandals such as the Satyam and the 2G scam. But can, and should, a business behave ethically at all? Is the corporate social responsibility of a company just to make profits as Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once famously declared?In this timely book, Professor S. Manikutty takes us through the minefield of business and ethics, looking at how ethics enters work and the choices available to companies and individuals. He argues that being ethical is not a simple of doing the right thing vs the wrong thing; it is also to find a balance between multiple right or wrong choices, arriving at not a solution but a compromise. Using a variety of examples and case studies from Indian businesses, Being Ethical is an indispensable book any responsible manager.

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Economics

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	25 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184002768
Langue	English

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Dear Reader,
The book you are holding is one of the books of IIMA Business Books series published in collaboration with Random House to disseminate knowledge to executives in a manner that brings them up to date in different fields of management. The first set of books in the series published in 2010, were liked immensely by the readers. The series is being expanded in 2011 with the publication of another set of books on new topics. The idea is to publish books on a comprehensive list of topics in management in the next few years for practicing managers.
The IIMA Business Books are written by authors who have rich experience of teaching executives from a diverse set of organizations. Written in a conversational style with numerous illustrations from the world of practice, you would find the books useful in your daily work life. The references cited in the books provide you with ready information on where to look for more detailed knowledge on specific topics and concepts if required.
The events in the world of business in the last few years have sharply brought into focus the need for businesses to be run ethically. This is however easier said than done, since the practice of ethics in business requires choices to be made by individuals and organizations that may be too complex to unravel. The book Being Ethical deals with a myriad of situations encountered in business and offers frameworks that may be used to make the choice in those situations. I am certain that not only will you enjoy reading the book but that you would also become better equipped to deal with ethical dilemmas you face in your work life.
Please feel free to write to us suggesting topics that you would like covered in the books that are to be published under the series in the future.
Samir K. Barua
Director IIM Ahmedabad
Being Ethical
Being Ethical
ETHICS AS THE FOUNDATION OF BUSINESS
S. MANIKUTTY

RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2011
Copyright S. Manikutty 2011
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B, A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, U.P.
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184002768
To
Geetha
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Business Ethics? What is That?
2. Can We Analyse Ethical Issues?
3. Between Scylla and Charibdys
4. Caveat Emptor!
5. I Am the Boss: Employee Issues
6. Dealing with Them : Ethics towards Competitors
7. The Firm and its Environment
8. Business, Community, Society, and Shareholders
9. Building an Ethical Organization
10. On Becoming an Ethical Manager
11. Ethics and Management Education
Conclusion: The Difficulty of Being Ethical
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the numerous students I have taught in the PGP, PGPX, and PGP PMP in the subjects of leadership and ethics whose insights have enriched this book. This book could not have been the same without their contributions to class discussions, term papers, and those (perhaps hated at that time) 9.15 pm pre-class discussions.
I wish to thank the IIMA and its director, Professor Samir Barua, and Professor Jayant Varma for this initiative of bringing out this book as a part of the IIMA Random House Books series on different topics.
Thanks are due to the editors at Random House India, Chiki Sarkar, Priyanka Sarkar, and Milee Ashwarya for their support, and the anonymous copy editor who did a great job of editing the manuscript.
I wish to place on record my appreciation for the excellent typing of the manuscript done by my secretary, Ramany Vijayapalan.
Introduction
The recent scandals in the world of business as, for instance, with Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, and Satyam have kindled a debate on the subject of business ethics. Management journals carry papers, commentaries, and discussions on business ethics, ethics in business, personal ethics of businessmen and managers, and so on. Invariably, some blame is laid at the door of business schools, as if business fraud was their invention; management thinkers and scholars indulge in considerable introspection (something they are particularly good at) and wonder, individually and collectively, whether they indeed had something to do with the state of affairs, and whether they can do something about it. Not many, of course, remember the great frauds in the UK and the USA, especially in the Antebellum Era, which made billionaires who later went on to become great philanthropists, much before the advent of formal management education. On a positive note, books on business ethics, with different approaches such as philosophical, conceptual case studies and plain old pontification, seem to be flourishing. Many adopt a position today that businesses are not solely for earning profits and for enhancing shareholder value; they should use ethics as one of their foundations for doing business. This is the position taken by this book: every manager has the obligation to ensure that the business is run not only on commercially sound lines but also on ethically sound lines, and an ethical organization should not be seen as an object of curiosity.
I wonder whether, in embarking on writing this book on business ethics, I need to confront a fundamental problem. If a manager is ethical, this book is not needed. If, on the other hand, he is not, then this book will not do any good anyway. How, then, could such a book be justified?
I believe that few managers are completely ethical or unethical. Most (happily) strive to be ethical, but struggle to find what that ethical solution is. This book is intended for this vast majority who confront ethical dilemmas, grapple with the issues, and seek a better understanding on the ethical issues involved in business as well as in personal life.
Another problem I confront is regarding what approach this book should take. This book is not for the philosopher who wishes to delve into the intricacies of ethical questions; it is meant for the working manager who perhaps wishes to know how he can build a more ethical organization and be more ethical at a personal level. Should I present the issues as a quick-fix guide, a sort of do-it-yourself book, or as a manual of ethics-in-six-easy-steps? A book on the legal aspects of business can summarize and tell the reader what those legal aspects are; a book on strategy can present a step-by-step approach on how to formulate strategy. But I believe that ethics is different; it is not possible to reduce ethics to a set of basic commandments and present them as a this-is-what-you-should-do module. One can, of course, devise a questionnaire, which will enable the reader to get a score on his ethical orientation and create an illusion of self-discovery; one could provide a step-by-step flow chart he could navigate through and arrive at what the ethical decisions are in a circumstance, creating an illusion of mastery of technique. But I believe that these are basically Sunday-School approaches which are got over by Monday, and most of the recipients of these pieces would have eschewed them.
The trouble about ethical problems that managers confront in real life is that they are in the nature of dilemmas, and rarely have a clear-cut solution. There are few invariant imperatives that can be applied in all situations. What is right and ethical depends so much on the situation, on the actors involved, and on your own values that generalizations seem to be difficult. There can be no the best or the right solutions; there can only be a what is the best or right under the circumstances solution. The worst thing is, the solutions cannot be found in a book; you have to figure them out yourself.
Why, then, this book? Because, even though there may not be any solutions and answers to ethical problems, managers should be aware of what questions to ask, what roadmap of questioning may lead to better resolution of the issues. Even though the answer may not exist, there may be better answers, which are worth seeking. Ethical issues are, in general, complex, and understanding this complexity itself may be a useful first step in arriving at better solutions.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This book does not, therefore, adopt a step-by-step-guide-to-ethics approach to arrive at the solutions; what it seeks to do is to take up the different dimensions in business ethics and explore and present the issues that arise. Thus there are ethical issues in dealing with customers, employees, competitors, the community, and the larger society. In each, there are a number of situations that pose different issues, which are complex and need to be understood. There are multiple points of view that need to be looked at and a common theme is that they all involve not solutions, but tradeoffs. Managers are to arrive at what seems to them to be the best tradeoffs.
Thus the book looks at ethical dilemmas rather than ethical problems with a solution . There are, of course, certain actions that are clearly unethical, and these are highlighted. But the more important value the book seeks to bring to you is to present you the picture in all its complexity, leaving you to figure out for yourself what you would do under the different situations presented.
TO WHOM THIS BOOK IS ADDRESSED
If you are one of those who feel that business and ethics do not mix, or believe that this is a practical world, and you do not get around by