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Creates fairness in competition
Business ethics ensures that there is fair play as business firms compete with each other. e.g. It would be unethical to:
- Buy competitors products and destroy them before they reach the market
- Discredit competitors products with a view to reducing their sales
- Damage the competitors promotional materials such as bill boards
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Ensures no discrimination in business
Business ethics ensures that there is no discrimination in areas such as recruitment, promotion training, remuneration, and assignment of duties. Everybody should therefore be equal opportunity or equal chance regardless of set of ethnicity.
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Ensures protection of the environment
Ethics in business prohibits business units from carrying out activities that may cause pollution and degradation of the environment.
Environment degradation may be caused by human activities such as logging and unplanned cultivation.
Pollution may be caused by activities like:
- Dumping effluents from production units into water masses thus causing water pollution. This is disastrous to human health and animal.
- Emitting carbon dioxide and other gases into atmosphere causing air pollution.
- Damping of waste materials on the land surface causing solid waste pollution.
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Avoid consumer exploitation
Ethics ensures that consumers are not exploited by the business through:
- Overcharging
- False advertisement
- Selling poor quality goods and services
- Selling wrong quantities
- Selling harmful commodities
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Ensures fair play in competition
Ethics ensures that businesses do not engage in unfair practices while competing with others. These practices include:
- Destroying a competitor’s product or promotional tools such as billboards
- Buying and destroying competitors products before they reach the market
- Giving false information about a competitor’s product
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Ensures rights of employees are upheld
Ethics ensures that the employer does not violate the rights of employees especially as laid out in terms and conditions of employment. Such rights include payment of dues in time.
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Eliminates use of unfair means of achieving business objectives
Ethics ensures that business operations are carried out in a professional way. For example it is unethical to give or receive a bribe in order to win a business contract. It is also unethical to hold goods awaiting for their prices to go up
