Ehical Issues at Hondo

Ethical values are a mechanism that controls behavior in business and in other areas of life. There are four major sources of ethical behavior in business.

1. Religion

2. Culture

3. Philosophy

4. Law

Religion

The great religions, including the Judeo-Christian tradition prominent in American history, converge in the belief that a divine will reveals the nature of right and wrong behaviour in all areas of life, including business. There are doctrinal differences and though major religions agree on ideas that form the basic building blocks of ethics in every society. Christian Managers often seek guidance in the Bible or Koran depending on the belief and culture of the individual. The Bible like the source books and writings of other major religions, was written in a pre modern, agricultural society, and many of its ethical teachings require interpretation before they can be applied to problems in the modern workplace.

Much of the ethical teaching in the Bible comes in parables. The following are examples extracted from the Bible verses.

Luke Chapter 15, verse 11-32, the parable of prodigal son who tells the story of an unconditionally merciful father on ethical conflicts in corporate superior/ subordinates relationship.

Luke 16: 19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus teaches concern for the poor and challenges Christian managers to consider the less privileged whereby billions of people are living with lesser income.

Koran is another source of ethical inspiration. For example Prophet Muhammad says that "every one of you is a shepherd and everyone is responsible for what he is shepherd of it", and in modern context, the Muslim manager has a duty to rise above narrow self interest to protect the good of the organization.

In the Jewish tradition, managers can turn to rabbinic moral commentary in the Talmud and the books of Moses in the Torah. For example in the Talmud, it is believed that the society in which a person who starts fire is responsible for the for damage from flying sparks and comparing it to the industrial text, the ethics lesson is that polluting companies are responsible for problems caused by their waste.

Philosophy

A western Manager can look back on more than 2000 years of philosophical inquiry into ethics. Even after two millennia, there remains considerable dispute among ethical thinkers about the nature of right action. Standards of ethical behaviour were arguably clearer in ancient Greek civilization than they are now. If we look into the Greek philosophers, Greek ethics from Homeric times onwards were embodied in the discharge of duties related to social roles such as shepherd, warrior, merchant, citizen, or king. In business, the ethical legacy of the Greeks and Romans remains a conviction that virtue such as telling the truth, obeying the law, justice, courage, friendship and the use of power are important ethical qualities.

Ethical thinking was dominated by the great Catholic theologians after the rise of Christianity. The 10 Commandments were also part of the ethical teachings sourced from Christianity. To this day there is still a deep divide between Christian managers who look to the Bible for divine guidance and other managers who look to worldly writing for ethical wisdom.

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