Экзамен 3 курс / Ethics

Ethics

At present time the main purpose of businesses – is to gain as much customers as possible. That’s why companies now work so hard at self-improvement. The most important thing for the company is customer orientation. Customer orientation (CO) is the set of beliefs in sales that says that customer needs and satisfaction are the priority of an organization. It focuses on dynamic interactions between the organization and customers as well as competitors in the market and its internal stakeholders. It involves a continuous improvement in business processes. Also it is very essential for the company to create a positive image in order to influence on customers attitude. Creating a company image is similar to gardening. You can do nothing and most likely something will grow or, you can carefully plan and tend to your garden to create any number of landscapes. So, the company should plan its own image very carefully because this is the only way to put the right information inside the customer’s mind. Today the integral part of a company image is quality of its business ethics. Business ethics is the set of rules and principles in business. It includes special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce. Plain and simple, ethics is the choice between right and wrong. Companies are part of society and as such they should reflect society’s standards. Companies, especially multinational, do have responsibility in the world and should try to be a positive influence. If company is not ethical, then it will not survive (существовать) as a company. Sometimes it is very essential for the company to have a code of good business practice (кодекс добросовестной деловой практики). Because a set of moral standards, I mean a code of ethics, makes a commitment (обязательства) to certain good behavior and so it’s a way of communicating the importance of good behavior to all of its employees and partners. Moreover, if company has a code of ethics and spends time communicating it, it does actually contribute to its ethical behavior. So the improvement of business ethics is the most important aim among the others in the mission statement which is a short written description of the aims of a business.

But sometimes we may face unethical company’s activities. I mean that some companies, especially in Russia, avoid paying tax, employ people illegally, sell defective products and they give bribes to government officials. Also in Russia employees very often ring in sick when they are not ill, take extended lunch breaks and use work facilities for private purpose. But in order to be perfectly honest it is necessary to say that in Russia it is impossible to be fully ethical. For example it is unreal to do business in Russia without slush funds and everybody height whistleblowers in our country. So, there is no totally law-abiding company in Russia. The exiting situation in Russian businesses is the dark legacy of 90^th when swindlers became the most rich and powerful people in Russia. Nowadays bribes are still universally accepted in our country in spite of the fact that bribes are illegal. I don’t know what is worse: to offer or to accept a bribe. In my opinion it does not matter what are you doing – offering or accepting, in both cases you belong to prison. It seems to me that our country is the most corrupt country in the world and least corrupt country is Canada according to the table in Market Leader.