Professional Values and Ethics

Professional Values and Ethics

In today's career world success is based on how well an individual adapts to different situations and makes professional decisions. Applying personal values along with ethical beliefs are important for making these decisions. Professional ethics is something that successful companies have and apply on a daily basis. It is important to understand the differences and similarities between values, ethics and their impact on career success both personal and company wide.

Values are the rules by which a person makes decisions whether right or wrong. Dictionary.com defines values as beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something). In career success values are important because it defines how an individual gets the work done in professional situations and how decisions are made according to the each situation. Personal values will determine an individuals reaction when interacting with another individual who has different values and principals. It also reflects the most basic characteristics of adaptation that guide a person in deciding which situations should be entered and what should be done in those situations (Kahle, 1980). Sometimes a person's values are in conflict with those of a business, but the appropriate thing to do may not be to leave the company. The decision depends on the individuals priorities; for instance a 19 year old who has nothing to loose may think nothing of quitting his or her job while a parent who has a family to feed value their job because their family‘s financial security is at risk. Similar to values, ethics also affects career success because it embraces a more universal way of making decisions.

There seems to be a thin line between morals and ethics. It appears that while ethics is described as what a professional should do or not do in the workplace morals is a motivation based on the ideas of right and wrong (Dictionary.com). Ethics is a formal system of conduct that should be adopted in all dealings in the way that professionals conduct themselves in and out of the workplace. Some concepts of ethics include professional respect and avoidance of dishonest or fraudulent behavior. Not only is a professional supposed to behave in a decent way at work but he or she is also expected to behave in the same way outside of the place of employment. Only that when outside of the place of employment such expectations