Ethical Dilemmas: How Scandals Damage Companies

Ethics. Values. These things are extremely important to working professionals in any industry.  In fact, 73% of professionals say they take an organization’s values into account and would not apply to a company unless its values aligned with their own.

Furthermore, 82% of workers say they would prefer to be paid less and work for a company with ethical business practices rather than receive higher pay at a company with questionable ethics.

Business leaders need to work to ensure their organization is one with high morals, principles, conduct, and ethics so that employees feel comfortable and confident there. Employees who believe in your corporate principles and conduct and share your values are a huge asset to the organization. Employees and management alike can work together to create businesses that have high standards.

Unethical businesses also lose favor with consumers. 43% of consumers have stopped buying from brands they find unethical and 71% say they carefully consider corporate values when making a purchase. Trust is vital for consumers to feel comfortable and confident with their purchases. Business ethics is its own set of morals and values that are vital in a workplace or corporation. Business ethics involves the industry, their business practices, how they deal with customers, profits, legal issues, and corporate conduct. Management needs to focus on business ethics as an important pillar of their corporation in order to make sure customers are happy with the appearance of their workplace..

The workplace should focus on their ethics and values so they can attract the right employees and consumers alike. The more willing a workplace is to create a mission that demonstrates their ethical values, the more likely the organization is to thrive and succeed. rates their ethical values, the more likely the organization is to thrive and succeed. In fact, recent reports show businesses that have ethical workplace cultures outperform their competitors—but especially in stock price growth.

Ethical scandals in business can deeply hurt the look of a corporation, which can make employees and consumers get a bad taste in their mouth about the morals of the company. How a company reacts to ethical scandals and dilemmas that happen on a small level will say a lot about their core practices and values. As a student of business, it’s valuable to learn from business scandals to understand what to avoid or watch out for in business ethics of a company, as an employee and as a consumer. Utilize your time as a student to learn from examples that can give you a deeper understanding as you prepare for a business career.