Causes an Consequences of being Unethical in Business

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When I do good, I feel good;

When I do bad, I feel bad;

This is my religion

"Abraham Lincoln"

Being unethical means having no ethical value. Ethic is a very broad term, as it covers every work of life; business, education, religion, family, job etc. One characteristic of ethics is that “Ethics is ethics”. This means that there is no such thing as a special ethics. We apply the same ethics in everything we do, and use the same ethics in any situation we find ourselves ,because applying different ethics in different life situation or circumstance causes INSTABILITY. Unethical people are susceptible to adverse changes, so they find it very difficult to have a focus. In defining the term ethics, we could say that; Ethics simply means considering the needs of others. Of course, when someone is conscious of the feelings of people around them, they will exhibit a high level of trust, honesty, truthfulness and justice. When you have these characteristics, (trust, honesty, truthfulness, justice);
People will always believe in you, because you have built a relationship with them on a foundation of trust.
They will always be frank in all their dealings with you, because you are in return honest with them.
When you exhibit a truthful personality among your fellow human beings, they will definitely reciprocate by being truthful to you as well.
Finally your judgment will hardly be questioned, because it will not be bias. Instead, it will be based on correct principles, and on generally accepted facts. People will see you as a person who delivers good justice.
These are the benefits that accrued to people who consider the needs of others, i.e., people who are ethical. This is not the same on the other side of the map; the side with the unethical people, which is the topic of discussion. As already explained, being unethical is having no ethic of life. It is the exact opposite of being ethical. It defines people who never consider the needs of others in whatever they do. This kind of people are said to be selfish and egocentric, as they only put into consideration, the things that will do the most good to them, and what they can benefit from. They hardly concern themselves with other people’s needs and problems, because their life is only centered and focused on their own problems or on a particular situation, which involves them. They laugh alone, cry alone and will definitely die alone. In business, such people posse danger to the economy. They are the type of individuals that make products that are harmful to human health and will launch it into the market, without looking back, as long as they are making their profit. “It’s all about me, myself and I”, and whoever gets hurt along the way, is none of their business. Such persons will not care about their workers either. Hardly do they think of how to create a good employer-employee relationship. They are the boss, so they make their own decisions, irrespective of how the employees accept these decisions they have made. Anyone who does not abide to the rule, has to be sacked to create space for those who are willing to accept the boss’s ideas. As long as an unethical person is concerned, their judgment cannot be questioned. What has such a person gained? One thing for sure is that “no man is an island” and for any business to grow effectively, there has to be flow of ideas from different sources. In a situation where there is only one source of information, it will be hard to achieve certain goals and objective in the business. The goals and growth of the business will be limited. Even in personal lifestyle, effectiveness will also be limited. It is also good to note that;” whatever is at the center of our life, will be the source of our protection, counsel, wisdom, and power”.

Protection represents guidance, ones sense of worth, ones identity, ones emotional anchorage, ones self-esteem, ones basic personal strength or lack of it.
Counsel means your source of direction in life.
Wisdom (also called sapience), measures:
One’s ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight
One’s perspective on life
One’s sense of balance
One’s understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other.
It embraces judgment, one’s apprehension and comprehension.

Power is the energy and ability to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.
But if the only thing at the center of someone's life is “self”, that person is unethical and this is how all this factors will be:

PROTECTION
The protection of such a person, will be constantly changing. The person will be relatively unstable

COUNSEL
Their judgment criterion is: "If it feels good..." "What I want." "What I need." "What's in it for me?

WISDOM/SAPIENCE
They view the world by how decisions, events, or circumstances will affect them.

POWER
Their ability to act is limited to their own resources, without the benefits of interdependence

When these irresponsibility’s are taken into a business context, it is certain that, such a business will result to nothing less than failure.

Causes and Consequences
It is a sure fact, that life without ethics is unprofitable. This is the life of people who are unethical. This fact of life is also applicable in business. Now the big question is “Why are business people unethical and what consequences, go with being unethical?”


1.Bad Role Models in the Society:
At a certain point in any entrepreneurs’ business live, they need to have a spark that gets them started and keeps them going. This is what is called “inspiration”. This inspiration can be an idea, an opportunity or a person. Everybody in this world has a role, even if it is a wrong example. Of course the world is full of wrong examples created by people. Most people now relax while doing the wrong things because others are prasticing the same evil deeds. What seems wrong with this is that, sometimes the persons’ who participate in these wrong doings, are the same people others look up to. In such situation, it becomes difficult for other people who look up to them to differentiate between right and wrong. In the world today, the rate at which many people engage in evil doings is quite alarming. One can even find a situation where top business tycoons involve themselves in one economical mess or the other and still get away with it. When an average individual views such situations, they would not help but perceive this as smartness, while in the real sense, it means pure foolishness. They are not conscious of the act, but see is as being the right thing to do. Now they follow up, some might be lucky to escape the aftermath, others might not. But before anything, their actions must have cost millions of lives and they will also succeed in passing the same wrong examples, to other people’s minds. These are the kind of information that will be passed on from generation to generation, and it won’t be long before everybody’s minds become clouded with the same wrong judgment. Take the issue of global warming for instance. Science and technology is one of the major things that cause the whole concept of global warming, and the world’s most contributors are the firms. A lot of businesses keep coming up, a lot of engines are being manufactured, so still the trend of global warming gets worse by the day. Laws have been made by the government, to check the issue, but all to no avail. When one examines the situations critically, it will be discovered that the reason why this is so, is because nobody wants to lead the line. To start with, if top firms and enterprises don’t set the right examples, then young, upcoming firms will also care less about the issue. So, everybody will continue being unethical in their way of reasoning.

2.Rationalization
This happens to be one of the characteristics of humans. It is a regular behavior for every human being because, it is a defense mechanism. When we find rules and regulations that are hard for us to accept, it is almost a natural thing to find good justification to go against these rules. This is what is called Rationalization. Also, when something happens such that we find it difficult to justify our actions, then we will make up a logical reason why such a situation happened. When this is the case, you find situations where people make mistakes and find it hard to accept their mistake. They first lie to themselves and they concretely believe within themselves, that they have done the right thing. Trying to get the person to see that what they have done is wrong, might lead to arguments that will never come to a resolution. For people who have ethical values but are rational, they are able to do something that is outside their values and get away with it without feeling too guilty. For a rational business person;
He/she might make take wrong decisions and claim that it is for the overall benefit of the firm.
If the business fails to stand, they will ascertain that the type of business wasn’t their call in the first place. If it was a car business, the person will claim that he will do better in a computer business.
He/she might fire a reliable worker and claim that it is for the workers own good
For the worker who just lost his job, he might tell people that he didn’t even like the job in the first place
The enterprise might violate paying tax and then say that the government charges too much tax or maybe that the government wastes the money they collect from tax
If the business makes less profit at one time, they will tell people that the firm was going through a lot of crisis
If they make products that harm, or even probably kill other people, they go like “thank God ONLY few people where affected”

With these examples, it will be seen that the consolations they have given themselves is overtly and covertly detrimental, to the progress of the business. Instead of a driving force to push them towards positivity, they will be drawing themselves backwards. When one makes mistakes, one has to go back to their drawing board and try to address the problem, rather than inventing excuses to justify the mistake and allowing the unsolved problems to pile up. They have not told themselves the truth, so they are likely to stumble into the same mistakes, over and over again.

3.Peer Pressure
Sometimes we unconsciously find ourselves in this situation. It’s a natural law of attraction to be drawn to people who are in our peer group, to listen to them, and to do whatever it is that they have considered best. Peers influence one’s life even without one being aware of it. As we learn from our peers, they also learn from us. Hence, they either affect our judgment or we affect theirs. Also, its either they affect us in positive ways, or they affect us in the negative dimension. The reason why people fall into peer pressure influence is not farfetched. It could be because they want to belong, have that sense of belonging, fit-in, or they don’t want other people to laugh and make fun of them when they don’t do what their mates are doing. A group of others also fall in peer traps out of curiosity, to find something new which others are doing. The fact that everyone else is doing it affects their judgment, their principles and their way of thinking. This kind of people, see through the eyes of others. A business organization, that exhibits this kind of syndrome, is hardly stable. For the owner of the business, the driving force to act is missing. The person might be scared of advancing into better opportunities because, he thinks his friends will laugh at him. Sometime, he might also be scared that his friends will dessert him. He is not a man of him own. If he has problems in the business, he will only rely on the solutions from his peers or the group of people he associates with. If his peers are not there to tell him what to do, he wouldn’t no want to do. He will also like to do the kind of business his friends are doing, irrespective of whether he has a talent in the business or not. If his friends say its okay to do something, its fine by him too, even when the decisions they’ve taken is not in line with his own principles. Having friends is not bad, it is only bad when they don’t give the right advice, and worse when we don’t have our own correct principles. Your major life role will be to please your friends and of course, the well being of others is not an objective to them. Achieving success in whatever way will have limitations for such a person, because their sense of reasoning is limited by the influence of peers. Hence, such a person’s effectiveness is highly reduced.

4.Ethical Relativism
Sometimes people misunderstand the whole concept of ethic. They don’t have a clear picture of what ethic is all about. These kinds of people find it difficult to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. When they see the right thing, they think it is the wrong thing, and when they see the wrong thing, they think it as being the best thing to do. A lot of things could be the reason for this including difficulty in understanding what is ethical. This is called “ethical 3relativism”. Ethical relativism is the position where there are no moral absolutes, no distinction between moral right and wrong. This means that there are no moral norms, instead principles are generated from belief-in and whatever our society says is right or wrong. The work place needs standards that uphold its sustenance so no field needs ethical standards more than the work place. If ethical relativism and even moral relativism are to be upheld, then there will be a great tendency and ease for individuals to err in relation to their own principle, since every other person has his own style, feelings and views on one particular subject. In a business setting, a business that is drowning in ethical relativism will only succeed in originating discord in and around the workplace. If every worker is to have his own principle, then there will be no organizational law. Instead everybody will be acting the way they presume is morally acceptable to them. Also, if the boss of the company exhibits ethical relativism, then he will leave the workers with empty expectations, and nice sounding ideas. He only acts in what his moral norms and code explain as “right” and will not care how such code affect his workers and even the business. It will be almost impossible for such persons to accept correction or more beneficial ideas that will bring betterment to the company. Truth, right/wrong and judgment are relative and everything is drawn from an ancient perspective so the growth of the firm will be greatly impaired. The workers are withdrawn from the decision making process. There will be so much autocracy in the business style and the only thing that will have semblance to order is brutal force. Better still, anyone who refuses to abide by the norms either works away or waits to get fired by the boss. What will such a firm gain by being thrown into the arms of ethical relativism?
The good ones might be removed along the way, which will create a huge vacuum in the business
Of course, when the good ones are taken off the post, it only creates space for the bad ones who it will not be easy to predict what they have in mind
When one if faced with certain difficulties in the business, and there is no ethical absolute that seems to explain or offer solutions to the imminent problem at hand, the person will definitely find it difficult to get back on his feet and tackle the problem the way it should be handled.
Lastly, with the amount of pressure being press on the workers, the ones that survive the rage will live under the fear of being fired like the rest.

Conclusively, as long as ethical relativism is concerned, there is no better tomorrow for the any firm that participates in such ugly affairs. It is likened to building a house in a shaky foundation. So the firm will probably not stand or will definitely collapse some day.

5.Corporate Culture
Corporate culture generally refers to the culture of an organization. To better understand corporate culture, it will be good to know the meaning of “corporate” and “culture”. Corporate means: “of or belonging to a corporation or an organization.” Culture means the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization. So Corporate Culture refers to an organization's values, beliefs, and behaviors. Every organization must have its own unique endowments; what it is known for. Cultures sometimes become the laid down rules and principles that govern an organization. It may have originated from the founder of the organization and even we the founder dies, the principles are still carried on, irrespective of change and development and how it affects people. Even when the rules become out-dated, the rules are still applied to fulfill all righteousness of its foremost founder’s decrees. Basically, all decisions of the firm are taken based on this principle. If it affects other people in the long run, it might be very difficult for the organization to easily adopt new principles. In most cases, this happens to be an unconscious behavior, because the firms’ rules could sometimes be based on the values of the top management or the founders of an organization. Corporate culture is more efficient when it is amendable but in a case where it is stiff and rigid, it becomes selfish and absorb. It will not consider the demands and needs of the workers and hardly will anyone have the right to imbibe other principles, order than the organizational principles. The benefit of corporate culture cannot be forgone. If corporate culture is made on generally acceptable principles, it will inevitably bring about the required oneness and unity, needed to fully run a business. It not only makes the workers to come together as a whole, it also allows for the sharing of ideas within the firm. It makes every worker feel like part of the organization and will prosper focus on achievements, from every individual in the firm. Corporate culture becomes unfair and highly insignificant when it is not originated and invented by existing individuals of a firm. If it is based on certain strong and firm principles, it removes every employee of the firm from acting towards achievements. Instead the employees are withdrawn from the decision making process whilst they are meant to serve on the honor of the principles they know nothing about. Their presence is seen as insignificant and their advices are undistinguished. When this happens, it hinders the prosperity of the firm a great deal because in order for any firm to be productive, it has to foster adaptation, adjustment, and change awareness but most importantly, it coalesces team work and when this is not the case, the individual is bound to act in any unethical way, to make sure that his voice is heard. He might without permission, covertly have his own principles. Other people who work in the same organization, may do so at well, device their own rules. What is now seen is a highly disorganized and choky atmosphere, which will definitely not be conducive for working. Understanding is dispersed and people are forced to act irresponsibly4



6.Pressure From Superiors
Pressure is one heavy load that nobody will ever be willing to carry. It makes people to feel the full force of intimidation for which most people even develop a complex in the long run. When this pressure comes from people who are above us, it becomes even more difficult to deal with. In the work place for instance, if our boss is so autocratic and bossy, the work environment becomes less attractive for the employee. This is because; their rights and privileges are being suppressed in such a way that their sense of worth becomes insignificant. The person only obeys instructions because he is afraid his employer might slap his face or kick his butt. They live in constant fear and apprehension. They focus of the pressurized worker is shifted from achieving goals to working under pretence. The knowledge of such individual will never come to the surface but rather, it will remain under water, drowning. He/ She will never be at ease. Even outside work, the person could burden the frustration on other people. Most definitely, nobody will want to be another person’s lap dog for any reason. So sometimes, to handle this problem, the person might device any unethical means to get back at the employer. He might resolve to backbiting, or might even resort to stealing some tips, to make up for the attention he is losing. In the process of backbiting, they could expose the firm negatively. Since they are not treated like part of the business, and their rights disposed, they lack the strength to act towards the productivity of the business. The worker might even take the firms deepest productivity secrets outside to other firms and competitors that are willing to listen to him. He will sell his talent to people who are willing to have it. For anybody to work effectively in any organization they have to feel like they are family. When they are allowed to air their opinion, they become effectively useful, but when they are forced to bottle up their opinion, they not only feel neglected, but they will also feel ineffective and cheated. For any firm to achieve an employer-employee conducive relationship, there has to be ease of communication between the employer (or superior) and the employee (worker). In any case where this structure is hampered, then the obvious result is likened to an absolute tyrannical system of leadership.

The above mentioned are the six reason why business people act unethically. Most times, this behavior is conditioned, like in the case of peer pressure influence, pressure from superiors, corporate culture, other times they are unconditional, like ethical relativism and rationalization. It is best for every individual to switch their minds from the unethically unbalanced state to a generally acceptable ethical frame of mind. But whichever is the case, it should be understood that whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well, because as far as ethics is concerned;
It’s the right thing to do.
Ethics formed by dubious means would tarnish an organization’s public image.
Any business with proper ethical foundation is “good business”.
Workers are usually more attracted to a business that has a core and solid ethical background.

Remember
Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching.