ETHICS - No Easy Choices

March 16th 2015

In my sixth class of intercultural management we talk about a very controversial topic, the ethics, why is it controversial?, because everyone has different perceptions and thoughts  about this subject.

First we have to take into account the definition of ethics in order to have a clear view and an overall knowledge.

According to (Bishop, 2013) ''ethics concerns the moral behavior of individuals based on an established and expressed standard of the group, which is in and of itself a collection of individual value'' 

With this said we can now have an overall view of the ethics, and we can now enter deeper on the subjects that we saw on class.

http://boscobae.blogspot.com/2012/11/calvin-and-hobbes-on-ethics.html


This is an example of how ethics can infer in the normal life and how normal people can have different perceptions of this topic and other example that we can see is that a partner in class said that the word ''unethical'' is a little out of context, because those different perceptions make people see things in different ways, so for some people actions might be unethical and for other people the same actions could be ethical, so the view in terms of the definition itself can vary depending on each person.

After this discussion Heiko presented us the differences between two concepts that helps to measure and judge the concept ethic.
Individualism: in this concept the morality is measured and guide by social and legal standards, from my point of view this is specifically for specific communities for example in Colombia is consider moral let women have an important roll in the society but on the other hand in the Arabian culture is unethical to let women have important roll in society because they have to be at home raising their sons and daughters and looking after the husband, however there is Universalism, where the morality is measures and guide by universal principles and this basically say for example that kill is unmoral everywhere.

With this said we can now talk about a topic that all countries on the world have no matter if is developed, developing, rich or poor; the bribery is a subject that we can see in almost every sector of the social, political and economical sector, basically bribery ''is a specific offence which concerns the practice of offering something, usually money, to gain an illicit advantage and corruption is an abuse of a position of trust in order to gain an undue advantage''.

Bribery can be separate in three categories, lubrication bribery which ''facilitate, expedite or speed up government approvals to which the company would be legally entitled'', extortion “A government official seeking payment for an action or omission to which the company would be legally entitled'' and whitemail bribes which are ''intended to induce someone (usually a government official) to do or omit doing something in violation of his lawful duty, or to exercise his (or her) discretion in favor of the payer’s request for a contract, concession, or privilege on some basis other than merit.''

From my point of view these topics need to be studied for long time before make an affirmation about them and even if they have been studying those subjects people cannot concluded a finally statement, as I said before this depend in a 100% the type o culture and people.

Also I think that the ethics and the morality is a fundamental base for the professional world, this led to the question    

QUESTION!!!

What ethical responsibilities should professionals have?

As professionals, we should have certain ethics to successfully meet the responsibilities, not only because is fundamental at the time to do business but also because with this we can avoid misunderstandings and avoid harming people.

According to The Code of Ethics & Professional Responsibility, there are 7 principles to achieve a good responsible and professional ethics:

Integrity: Provide professional services with integrity. Integrity demands honesty and candor which must not be subordinated to personal gain and advantage.

Objectivity: Provide professional services objectively. Objectivity requires intellectual honesty and impartiality. Regardless of the particular service rendered or the capacity in which a certificant functions, certificants should protect the integrity of their work, maintain objectivity and avoid subordination of their judgment.

Competence: Maintain the knowledge and skill necessary to provide professional services competently. Competence means attaining and maintaining an adequate level of knowledge and skill, and application of that knowledge and skill in providing services to clients.

Fairness: Be fair and reasonable in all professional relationships. Disclose conflicts of interest. Fairness requires impartiality, intellectual honesty and disclosure of material conflicts of interest. It involves a subordination of one’s own feelings, prejudices and desires so as to achieve a proper balance of conflicting interests.

Confidentiality: Protect the confidentiality of all client information. Confidentiality means ensuring that information is accessible only to those authorized to have access.

Professionalism: Act in a manner that demonstrates exemplary professional conduct. Professionalism requires behaving with dignity and courtesy to clients, fellow professionals, and others in business-related activities.

Diligence: Provide professional services diligently. Diligence is the provision of services in a reasonably prompt and thorough manner, including the proper planning for, and supervision of, the rendering of professional services.

- Bishop, W. (2013). The Role of Ethics in 21st Century Organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol 118(No. 3), Pp. 635-637. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from JSTOR.

- Schmidt, H. (Director) (2015, January 27). Communicating across Cultures. Lecture PowerPoint. Lecture conducted from EAFIT University, Medellin. 

- What is Bribery and Corruption? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.anticorruption.ie/en/acjs/pages/

- Schmidt, H. (Director) (2015, March 3) Ethics and Aesthetics. Lecture PowerPoint. Lecture conducted from EAFIT Universty, Medellin.

- CFP Board, C. (n.d.). CODE OF ETHICS & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Retrieved from http://www.cfp.net/for-cfp-professionals/professional-standards-enforcement/standards-of-professional-conduct/code-of-ethics-professional-responsibility