The Importance of Ethics and Values in Business Organizations

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Section A
Question one: Explain the importance of ethics and values in business sustainability?
Introduction:
Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and the society according to (BBC ethics 2014). Ethics in general builds a person’s character which is portrayed by his/her behaviour. Business ethics can be defined as a way of which people and institutions should behave in the world of commerce. Most businesses are profit driven and by examining constraints or profit for self-interest when the actions of individuals or firms affect others most according to (Chris MacDonald 2014). Business ethics can also be defined as a culture which is practised within a business which enables a business to make decisions and actions which are according to the principles of an organisation. Business ethics are important as they define the morals and behaviours of an organisation (Nieuwenhuizen and Oosthuizen T.F.J. (ed) 2014:93).

Academics and business leaders have an agreement with certain issues with regards to business ethics in South Africa. It states that South Africa is shedding the racist apartheid legacy that has held South Africa from uniting and that South Africa is growing in to a democratic country where rights of individuals are protected. Issues of business ethics are of a normative kind which shows that academic discipline is still in its early stages of development (G.J. Rossouw 1997). Businesses have codes of ethics which are formally written to guide employees on how to behave within a business which mostly consists of normative ethics for guidelines (Schwartz, 2005).

There has been international debates surrounding the role of businesses in the apartheid South Africa, were an important driver of the growing cor...

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...e’, viewed 22 April 2014, from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-009-0293-8
• Rossouw, G.T, 1997, `Business Ethics in South Africa’, viewed 22 April 2014, from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1005858930223
• Sabine Sczesny, Jane Basak, Denial Neff, Birgit Schyns, 2005, `Gender Stereotypes and the Attribution of Leadership Traits: A Cross-cultural Companies, viewed 25 April 2014, from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-004-0715-0
• Tommi P. Auvinen, Anna-Maija Lämsä, Teppo Sintonen, Tuomo Takala, 2013, `Leadership Manipulation and Ethics in Storytelling’, viewed 3 May 2014, from: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-012-1454-8
• Trainingzone, Importance of Leadership Effectiveness, viewed 4 May 2014, from: http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/blogs/sudhakarprabu/blog-sudhakar-i-prabu/importance-leadership-effectiveness

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