Ethics Is a Personal, Individual Affair, Not a Public or Debatable Matter

tesss

I agree that ethics is a personal, individual affair, not a public or debatable matter. It doesn’t have to be right or wrong about ethics. It’s also something that we can’t learn easily. We have our own ethics and values since we’re kids, that’s from family. Different backgrounds, religions, ethnic groups, those things will create their own perception of an ethical situation. As we’re growing up, public places like school, college, workplace and eventually society will teach us about different ethics. How we cope up with our own environment like those places, we will set our own ethics based on society’s perception of right or wrong.

For example, it’s considered “okay” to use a company’s car to do activities outside work. But for most of people, it’s considered unethical. It’s considered unethical to give tips in some countries, but in Indonesia it’s like a common thing to do to appreciate service from a certain person. That’s why in my opinion, ethics is a personal and individual matter that is largely influenced by how society works around us.

It’s important to teach ethics in business schools because it can help students to learn the best principles and values about “good” ethics in business world. They say, good ethics mean good business. “Doing the right thing” matters to employers, employees, stakeholders, and the public. Ethical problems are not only an individual or personal matter, it’s helpful to see the different levels of a company at which issues come from and how they move to other levels. With more exposure of unethical business practices, coming to light and their effects impacting public.

Ethics can be taught and trained. Students can learn from case studies, role playing, and discussions about how our actions affect others in different situations. By doing that, students will gain different perspective of the cases and whether it’s considered unethical or not, based on everyone’s different perspective that being discussed together. Ethic courses shouldn’t promote a set of rules or only one best solution from a single perspective.

Stakeholder theorists view the corporation as a collection of internal and external groups (such as shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, and neighboring communities) that is stakeholders. Stakeholders is defined as any individual or group who can affect or is affected by the actions, decisions, policies, practices, or goals of the organization. A stakeholder approach enables decision makers to clarify relationships, strategies, and events in order to describe and evaluate moral options that address issues of justice, fairness, and equity in all stakeholder interests.