Business Ethics and Profit

Business ethics is based on general human value – freedom. This means that a businessman should appreciate not only the freedom of his commercial activities, but also the freedom of its competitors. Another fundamental principle is tolerance, which means that you can not overcome with sudden attack of weakness and shortcomings of partners, customers and employees. Business relationship requires tact and sensitivity. Be considerate means to be aware of your partner, client or subordinate as equal person. Moreover, by the delicacy it is understand the courtesy and attentiveness to communicate, the ability to spare the vanity of your colleagues. It should be mentioned that business ethics is guided by the notion of justice, which involves an objective assessment of people and their activities, recognition of their identity, openness to criticism. Also, business people all over the world have such concept as business commitment, which means that contract, in any case, must be executed. It should be mentioned that the formula for business success is simple: prosperity = professionalism + decency. Another important factor is good reputation. It is extremely difficult to acquire a good reputation, but it can be lost instantly and often for nothing. The manner of speech, clothing, demeanor, and office interior ”“ every component is important for reputation. Consequently, the basic postulate of every self-respecting company’s ethics lies in the fact that profit is above all else, but honor is above profit. Therefore, there are following basic ethical principles of the modern businessman, which have enormous influence on the reputation and image of the businessmen:
 Respect yourself as a person, as well as respect others. In the business relationships show tolerance, sensitivity, tact, trust not only for yourself, but also for business partners.
 Be convinced that honor is above profit.
 Recognize the inevitability of competition and the need for cooperation.
 Appreciate not only the freedom of your commercial activities, but also freedom of action of your competitors.
 Be able and not afraid to take risks and assume responsibility for all decisions.
As an example of the fact that business ethics is a necessity and contributes to the success of the company I would like to consider the ethical-economic concept of Henry Ford. It should be noted that Ford believed that happiness and well-being can be achieved only by honest work and that this is the sound common sense of ethics. The essence of Ford’s concept lies in the thought that produced product is not only implemented “business theory”, but something more – a theory, which aims to create from the world of things a source of joy. Strength and car, money and property are useful only insofar as they contribute to the freedom of life. Consequently, Ford paid particular attention to the production of workers. He justified the differential treatment of different qualities and talents of people and offered the work to people according to their powers and abilities. In particular, after the medical examination of patients with tuberculosis, workers were transferred to more easy work, retired were provided with pension and so on, according to Business ethics – do businesses behave ethically? (2010).
As a fact, Henry Ford believed that worker can provide high performance only if he feels as the owner of the enterprise. The method of production at his factories was based on his management system, which consists of systematic methods of production and combination of work processes. Also, Ford proclaimed the principle of service to man, according to which, there should be priority of production over consumption and profit over commerce. This principle involves three phases: purchase of raw materials; production of the final product, goods; sale of goods and profits. It should be mentioned that each of these phases is accompanied by the expression of joy and satisfaction for all participants of the production process. These manifestations have following results: high wages; low prices; large amount of profit due to the great mass of the goods.
All in all, I would like to say that ethics ”“ is the humanity, honesty, respect, goodwill, fairness and trust. It is not possible to provide effective management without business ethics, for the sake of success of the enterprise it is important to treat others with respect, appreciate other people and take into account what is happening in and around the enterprise. Each organization is the part of the society and the wider environment, disregard for society and the environment can lead to a situation in which the company can no longer continue its activity. Society and the environment can exist without any particular company, but the company without its environment and society will not survive. It should be noted that people create the organization and the organization is created in the first place for the people. All products and services that are produced and offered are created specifically for people and for their needs. That is why, nowadays, more and more companies and their top managers start to realize how important business ethics is, because it forms their image and reputation, which importance is constantly growing in today’s world.