Introduction
According to the Corporate Governance (6), “There is one great problem that seriously challenges the ability of America’s research-based pharmaceutical companies… in a word, it is trust.” This statement made by the president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Billy Tauzin, carries a lot of weight on the pharmaceutical industry the world over. It points out that the core challenge of this industry is salvaging its reputation that has lost credit in the eyes of the public and the stakeholders. The stakeholders and consumers of this industry have settled on a belief founded on the thesis that the, “financial success and subsequent pressures have blurred the industry’s greater purpose of improving human health” (Price Water House Coopers 1). Whether this thesis holds water or not, the fact remains that this industry has lost its reputation and hence calls for a way through which it can be restored. However, the reputation, though damaged, has not been destroyed. There is still hope of restoration. And one of the avenues is through emphasising on the ethical consideration in the industry. This paper will therefore ascertain the role of ethics in the success and failure of an organization and how it can implicate on the reputation of different members within the organization.
Resnik (par. 1) defines ethics as, “norms of conduct that distinguish between the acceptable and the unacceptable.” While making a clear distinction between right and wrong happens during an individual’s childhood, moral development usually assumes a lifetime nature and hence human beings undergo different stages of growth which lead to maturity. Subsequently, the development experiences and value acquisitions lead to differences in the interpretation of the universal ethical values. The same results into disparities in the application and balancing of the values and hence causes disagreements and disputes.
Many people tend to believe that ethical values are laws. However, this is a baseless notion. While laws equally govern the behaviour of individuals in a society, they are narrower as compared to ethics. Also, an action can be ethical but illegal while another action can be legal but unethical. In addition, ethics, unlike law can be defined from different perspectives. It can be focused from the disciplinary perspective to define the conduct standards within that discipline. This can include philosophy, sociology, theology, law, medicine and psychology. This is to say, one can find different ethical views concerning an issue of global warming if he approaches it from different disciplines like economics, ecology, politics, ethics, et cetera. From such points of view, ethics can be defined as guidelines, procedure or method on which an individual can base his action or analysis when faced by a complex issue or problem. Codes of ethics are therefore tools by which organizations use in order to streamline their activities of attaining their goals and objectives Resnik (par. 5).
The perception of the stakeholders and the consumers of certain issues in relation to that of the pharmaceutical companies have led to friction between the two groups. Among the most controversial issues within this industry that have led to a damaged reputation include research and development, pricing of their products, sales and marketing, finance and the ethics of the industry. Basically, all these issues revolve around the issue of ethics. While the stakeholders feel that pharmaceutical companies have failed to give ethical considerations an upper hand during decision making, the companies on their part feel that they have made the right choice that would assist them meet the ever increasing consumer demands and the market competition.
Controversial ethical issues
As mentioned earlier, several issues have led to controversy in perception of the companies and the consumers and stakeholders. This part of the paper will try to highlight some of the controversial ethical issues that offer challenges to the pharmaceutical companies hence deterring them from their primary objective and mission of improving human health and welfare and wisely managing the assets of their stakeholders. The following are the major ethical issues causing ripples in the industry.
Who should get access to which drugs?
The pharmaceutical industry faces difficulties in identifying drug allocation to needy patients. Making decisions on this issue faces challenges from the generic rationales and the principle of priorities. The decisions made in such circumstances are very essential in the formation of perception of the stakeholders and consumers towards the pharmaceutical industry. One of the issues founded on generic rationale and priority principles is the issue of treatment in relation to enhancement. Under this ethical controversy, primary issue is whether to provide drug treatment for medical problems that are viewed as major while giving limited consideration on intervention programs that are concerned with enhancement or efforts to maintain control of a condition that is otherwise Norman (Daniels, Teagarden & Sabin 129). In such a situation, a similar drug curing two different conditions might be given weight in one condition that is perceived to be more serious than the other. For example, the tretinoin Retin-A which is used to cure acne and at the same time can be used in the removal of wrinkles could be made available for acne because of its being a major medical condition as opposed to the wrinkles value because it is simply a cosmetic enhancement. Making decisions concerning this topic has sometimes resulted into great controversies.
Other forms of prioritization principles include whether the effectiveness drug in question proven or unproven, the cost worthiness of the drug and the condition in question and the constraints involved when seeking the cost advantages. Resolving the conflicts that arise under such circumstances call for much deliberation and agreement so that the stakeholders, consumers and the companies involved all end up satisfied.
Drug pricing and patient welfare
This marks another issue in the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, in the year 1999, pharmaceutical industry recorded the highest profits in the United States. They emerged the most profitable companies in the country. However, it was the same year that drugs emerged the highest contributors to the rise of health care. They accounted for 44% of the increase in the cost of health care. Despite this high cost of drugs, the post development cost is usually estimated at 20 or 30% of the selling price of the drug. What about the other 70 to 80%? Pharmaceutical companies have tried to justify the reasons as to why they have to charge such high prices for their products. Firstly, they purport to have reduced the prices of staying in hospitals and the payments for costly treatments and surgery. Secondly, they argue that the overall cost of drug development requires a lot of money for it to be successful. They point out that a single successful drug requires screening of more than 5000 compounds of which ten are supposed to undergo expensive clinical trials (Mamdani par. 2).
The fact that production of drugs is quite expensive has been argued by some scholars that this has been the creation of the pharmaceutical companies. The methods used by the companies are expensive methods that usually serve a very small market. This has resulted into the government’s contemplation to put price controls in the pharmaceutical industry. Yet, the industries are in position to lower their production costs and hence lower their prices to the consumer. By doing this, the health care sector could be subjected to lower prices on drugs and hence be in position to save money which could be pumped into other medical needs that are badly needed by the citizens. This could also help restore the bad image of the pharmaceutical industry in the public eyes (Mamdani par. 3).
From a different perspective, pharmaceutical industries point out that the driving factor that acts as a major motivator to involve in intensive research endeavours is usually the high profits. The intensive research has resulted into effective drugs that have been used to combat new forms of diseases and old ones that were initially untreatable. Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies argue that the estimation of the benefits both medical and economic cannot be made until marketing has been done. That is, the economic benefit can only be determined by the treatable population and also by the changing traits in medical practice. In addition, different drugs or firms usually share the research costs so that they can reduce the selling price. However, the cost of advertising drives the costs higher. Advertising is very essential because it avails information to doctors and patients who could have not known the existence of the drug (Mamdani par. 8).
Paediatric drug development
For a long time, research on children has been a controversial affair in the research and development realms. This came about after children were harmed or exposed to harmful situations in the name of research and development. This led to the development measures to ban the use of children in research. Among the issues that acted as driving factors were Henry Beechers enlisting of 22 academic publications that had been based on unethical research as pointed out by Rose. Among them was the use of mentally retarded children who were artificially injected with Hepatitis. In another episode, the transplantation of melanoma from a daughter to her mother had resulted into the death of the daughter just the following day before the mother succumbed a year later (Rose 4).
These resulted into reluctance in the inclusion of children in research and development. Breach of this led to litigation and thus most companies put disclaimers on their pediatric products to avoid this litigation. However, the recent years have witnessed a new turn of events. Most countries and organizations are calling for research and development using children. This would help in the discovery of drugs for prevention and cure of some of the diseases that are causing deaths in children. This has therefore caused ethical dilemmas in the pharmaceutical industry (Rose 5). The dilemma was to make up the decision between allowing children to be exposed to untested substances and forbidding this and hence denying them some therapeutic benefits. Both the cases were ethically incorrect. For instance, it is unethical to expose children to untested substances. At the same time, it would be unethical to withhold a drug that would be a breakthrough to a certain sickness on children. It therefore left a challenge for the pharmaceutical industry to make their decisions. The problem, however, is that several small pharmaceutical companies do not have adequate expertise to perform this task. This puts the children who might be subjected to these companies at risk.
These and several other ethical issues have implicated negatively on the pharmaceutical industry making the society hold a negative reputation of them. As pointed out, the decisions made in relation to the challenges can determine the relationship between the organization and its stakeholders. This leaves one question to be asked, does an emphasis on ethics result in success or failure of an organization? Can bad ethical decisions implicate on the reputation of the people within the organization?
Importance of ethics
Ethics form a prerequisite in the success of any given organization. Just like a vehicle being steered towards a given destination, a company has to be steered towards success by patiently and ethically maintaining open and transparent ways of getting to the destination. As the Independent Commission Against Corruption points out, economic success of business organization has henceforth changed its requirements. Unlike few decades ago, technical skills, quality products and practical knowledge alone will not steer an organization to success. Organizations require ethical leadership to be able to succeed. It is through the combination of these skills plus emphases of ethics that can enable an organization achieve and sustain its success (Independent Commission Against Corruption ii).
Today’s business entities depend a lot on shareholder participation and involvement in the company activities. However, the contemporary investors, unlike decades ago are very cautious of every thing they do with their hard earned dollars. The investors of today put high expectations on the leadership cream of the organizations. Before involving in the organization through investments, people look out for transparency and accountability of the organization, market information that is current and well analysed, financial and market data that is reliable. Accordingly, these factors result as the basic gauges to investment decision making for the investors. To achieve these, organizations must therefore enforce ethics which are the basic requirement that can be the foundation of achieving the mentioned factors of decision making (Independent commission against corruption ii).
Ethics lay a fundamental role in an organization’s decisions when dealing with conflict of interests. Consequently, the decision made concerning these issues determines the investors’ confidence in the investment decisions. This means that poor decision making can scare away investors causing failure of an organization. According to the Independent commission against corruption (ii), the increasing complexity in forms of transactions in the current world is increasingly putting organizations under such circumstances. This happens when a staff or a leader’s interests conflict with the interests of the organization and hence forcing him to interfere with his official duty discharging. In other circumstances, the interests of the organization might be in conflict with the public and the shareholders and stakeholders. In result, such situations might cause split loyalty which results into corruption, complaining and grievances.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption further identifies two types of situations of conflicts of interests. This can be either perceived or actual. Whichever the case, the public’s investment confidence can be greatly impaired with if they feel that the decision of the organization has been made without reflecting the interests of the stakeholders, shareholders and the general public. This would be detrimental to the reputation of the organization. As a result, the situations that can cause conflicts of interests must be avoided and in case of unavoidable situation, the decision should be made in such a way that will show transparency and hence enhance the public confidence. As a result, the organization should have clear guidelines on how to go about an issue of conflict of interests.
This issue has great implications in the pharmaceutical industry. As pointed out earlier, the reputation of this industry has of late been on the deep. The consumer and the stakeholders feel that the pharmaceutical companies are using their essential profession to rake in profits that make them top the list of profitable companies in the United States. However, the companies have tried to justify their high costs of drugs. Whether this remains true or false, the reputation of the companies has been tempered with. Stakeholders and the consumers have found them to be organizations that do not put the interests of the stakeholders and consumer in their decision making. It therefore calls for pharmaceutical companies to ensure that they solve this issue of conflict of interests so that they can salvage their reputation and also sustain their success.
Nothing can undermine the progress of an organization like the issue of corruption. Ethics however acts as a control of the manifestation of such activities. With corruption, the productivity of the organization can face drawbacks as most of the employees will be involved in these vices causing inside trading and other activities that will impede the development of the organization. However, Turnbull (2) identifies corruption from the power corridors of the organizations to be one of the issues that scare away investors and develop negative reputation for an organization. He points out that unitary boards of governors usually form a solitary group union from which they can use to promote their interests without considering the interests of the shareholders and stakeholders. While checks and balances help to put leaders under certain confines, corporate governance fails to have such balances and hence leaves the boards of directors to operate without restrictions and hence develop their own ways of attaining personal interests. With boards of governors failing to reflect the interests of the stakeholders and shareholders in their decision making, the public technically develops fear of investing in such an organization. However, there is a way out. Considering that the current corporate structures do not offer checks and balances for the decisions made by the unitary boards, the only way that good decisions can be made is through the development of a strong ethical basis. Turnbull further points out that the development of a culture of positive values and lessons in ethics are the only ways through which such problems can be avoided and hence restore the public’s investment confidence. In addition, ethics will form the platform from which members of the organization will base their decisions when dealing with issues of research and development. With a firm ethical foundation, employees will avoid using unethical research and development techniques so that they come up with products or services that will make them get a pay rise or job promotion. This is what resulted in catapulted unethical activities in the pharmaceutical industry several years ago which resulted into banning of using kids for research.
It is unarguable that the pharmaceutical industry is built on the foundation of research and development. Yet, this is one field that needs high standards of ethics for there to be any form of success. Resnik (par. 7) points out that the core factor to the success of research and development is founded on the basis of ethics. Ethics are a prerequisite in this field. One of the ethical considerations that must be considered when carrying out research includes the promotion of knowledge, error avoidance and truth. The aim of these ethical considerations is to promote the fundamental aims of research. In the basis of research, a researcher is not supposed to make research data false, fabricated or misrepresented. This is a technical step to avoid errors during research. Errors in research especially based on human life can result into great negative impacts like death or permanent disabilities.
One of the issues that have led to controversies and hence the poor reputation of the pharmaceutical industry has been based on this issue. In some instances mentioned earlier, poor research methods resulted into death and the injection of hepatitis in children. As a result, many people found that the pharmaceutical companies were taking advantage of their skills and harming children. The public hence decided to believe that the industry was full of errors and was not observing their primary objective of bettering the welfare of human life but they were worsening it. They felt that they were harming children with a primary objective of raking in profits. This points out one great fact. Unethical considerations within research and development in pharmaceutical industry can cause a dirty reputation which implicates on the drug consumption of the company concerned. According to the research carried out by Price Water House Coopers (2), the reputation of the pharmaceutical company plays a great role in the consumer’s decision to buy the product of the given company. This means that the companies are forced to involve ethics in their research decisions failure to which they can implicate on their reputation and hence reduce chances of selling their products.
Research ethics obligate researchers to ensure that they respect each other‘s intellectual property. They also call for cooperation between individuals to come up with more reasonable outcomes that will act to the best interest of the human welfare. This ethical consideration promotes respect and mutual responsibility which might result into better cooperation and hence better results (Resnick par. 8). Most of the researchers always want to receive credit for their discoveries and developments inn the industry. However, collaboration leads to better developments. Decision by a researcher to avoid collaboration and sharing of information can mean that he has blocked therapeutic benefits to the public. This on its own is unethical. In addition, the desire to be accredited with certain developments might lead to catastrophe. As Rose points out, small pharmaceutical companies engage in research with children when they don’t have enough experience to conduct such researches. What are the results of this? Failed experiments leading to deaths of children or permanent impairment are the outcomes. In addition, it leads to enacting of certain rules that block a certain click of the society from being accessible to some therapeutic benefits. For example, the catastrophes that occurred in the early years after the Second World War made many countries outlaw the use of children for research. However, this led to very limited developments in the control of children diseases. As a result, children had been denied certain therapeutic benefits due to few companies’ decisions to involve in unethical behaviours.
Just like the previous incidences, failure to observe ethics in this field leads to technical hitches that eventually translate to a bad reputation for the pharmaceutical company. And this is a direct implication on the economic performance of the same company. Consumers will fail to purchase products from the company on the basis of its reputation. Also, the bad reputation will implicate on the investment confidence of the public. Finally, it will also affect the stakeholders’ confidence in dealing with the companies.
Another role of ethics in the pharmaceutical industry is the enhancement of accountability in terms of research and development (Resnick par. 8). These policies that are enacted ensure that researchers in the pharmaceutical industries are held accountable to the public domain whose money is injected in the researches. Ethical codes that involve misconduct, solving of conflicts of interest, protection of human and animal subjects are usually enacted to ensure that the companies’ accountability is enhanced. This sense of responsibility is promoted in the ethical code that calls upon all researchers to promote the social good and ensure that no harm befalls the public.
Failure to observe this ethical consideration leads to the mentioned results above. One, the reputation of a company becomes smeared with dirt and two, the company runs a risk of facing punishment measures from responsible organizations. The sales of the company will therefore be implicated negatively due to the negative reputation while the company could also be shut down for failing to observe the specified ethical codes.
The role of the board of governors in the development of an organization is so great that their failure would simply mean the failure of the whole organization. This means that the moral failure of the board of governors could lead to the collapse of the company. Ethics is therefore essential for a sustained success of a corporate organization. As mentioned earlier in the text, only knowledge skills and all other positive characteristics cannot create and sustain a successful organization. Ethics is essential for the part of sustenance. For example, Zandra (17) points out that the board of governors for Enron was one of the most outstanding boards in American corporate world. They had all the qualities that could be needed for a board of directors. Every skill and experience was represented on the board. However, Enron faced bankruptcy without anybody’s expectations. This means that what the board lacked was not the skills required for management but the moral obligation required for sustenance of success. This shows that ethics are essential in the board of governors to ensure that an organization is successful and that it sustains its success.
A look in the role of the board of governors in the day to day activities of the corporate organization would ascertain why it is important that this board be founded on the policy of ethics. One of the roles of the board of governors is giving legitimacy to the corporation. With experienced and qualified members of the board, a corporate organization wins the confidence of the investors. Subsequently, the funding managers will be comfortable to fund the development of the organization without fear. The second role of the board of governors is based on auditing and other legal requirements of the organization. It is the role of the board to ensure that the information given to stakeholders, the government and the public is true and reliable. The auditing board is a subgroup of the board of governors and it usually is responsible for the financial information offered to the public. Thirdly, the business plan of the organization is approved, determined and modified by the board of governors. It is therefore the role of the board to listen to the company executives and their proposals and therefore decide on whether there proposals can be taken into account or not. Considering these mentioned roles, it is evident that the role of the board of governors is the core of all the business activities within the organization. They touch on every aspect of running of the organization. This thus signifies that should they make the wrong decision, the whole company will be affected (Zandra 17).
Ethics will therefore define the core activities of the board of governors. This is because determining the business plan of the organization needs ethical considerations. Without this, the organization could be involved in some unethical activities that would result into facing the law later. In addition, the board is concerned with the financial information of the company to the government and the public. This means that with unethical board members, the information being offered to the public and the government would be manipulated so that the board sustains the trust of investors while enriching themselves with swindled money. And all of a sudden, the corporate could find itself in trouble of bankruptcy as witnessed in the issue with Enron.
Implication of ethics to individuals
One very important factor to consider when making the decision to involve in an unethical endeavour is its implication on the reputation of the individuals in the organizations. For a long time, the role of the CEO and the role of the board has been considered so partially. However, it has recently been discovered that the major contributors to the failure in corporate governance are the board of governors and the CEOs. This is evidenced by the fact that the public develops its investment confidence in an organization after identifying that the board of governors who are the role players in the oversight of the company can be trusted. The investors will only be comfortable to invest in an organization if they have confidence that their interests will be put in consideration.
To assist protect the investor from losing money in the event of bankruptcy, the Bush administration came up with several guidelines that would mark as principles for corporate governance. One of the stipulations of the new principles puts CEOs in danger in case of a failure of his organization. According to the new stipulations, it will be the role of the CEO to ensure that the investors are subjected to accurate information concerning the development of the organization (Zandra 1). The CEO has been placed into the place of accountability to the public. In the new corporate governance principles, the CEO will be personally responsible of informing the investors on the current trend of the organization in a true, fair and timeless manner. This information will be relevant to the investors because the financial statements of the organizations have been prone to giving wrong and inaccurate financial information. Violation of these principles would have serious implications on the career of the CEO. According to the principles, whoever fails to observe these stipulations will be banned never to serve in any position of corporate leadership.
This is very essential to the career development of the CEOs. With Turnbull pointing out that the most appropriate solution to corporate governance is emphasis on ethics and values, it means that ethical consideration can be very essential to career development of an individual. By adhering to the ethical codes and regulations, a good CEO will not face the punishment of being banned from holding and corporate leadership position. On the other hand, failing to observe ethical considerations would jeopardize one’s career development. He might end up being banned from leading any other corporate.
For a long time, the financial information has been very essential in the investment decision making of the public. However, the trend seems to be taking a new turn. The financial statements have started to lose their trusts. This happened after the collapse of Enron. This therefore draws attention to the people behind the formation of the financial statements. These are the auditors. For some time, auditors have developed a policy of manipulating the numbers on the financial statement so that the corporate organizations can lure more and more investors who look at the trend and feel that the organization is headed to success. The same was evident in Enron until the corporate was suddenly declared bankrupt. Auditors are therefore part of the individuals within an organization that need to be exposed to great ethical lessons so that they so not involve in unethical behaviours like manipulating the financial statements. However, the new corporate government regulations by the Bush administration also brought in regulations for this group of people (Zandra 16). The regulations point out that auditors shall prepare and submit their financial statements under strict ethical considerations. Just like the CEOs, failure to observe this could result into being punished. This will also jeopardize the future career of the auditor. He might never have an opportunity to serve in a corporate organization.
The way forward
Having understood the implication of unethical behaviour on the development of an organization, one question remains unanswered. Is there a way that an organization can ensure that it develops an ethical culture so that it can protect itself from developing an ugly reputation or eventually running into bankruptcy? Is there a way a leader can ensure that he founds his leadership on ethical qualities so that he doesn’t jeopardize his career due to an unethical background? The answer is yes. Several studies have pointed out that an organization can be ethical. Not just that it can be ethical but that in the contemporary society where free market prevails, ethical obligations are essential for any substantial success. It is only through transparency and accountability that an organization can be able to survive in such a competitive free market.
As mentioned in the paper, the pharmaceutical industry has been greatly implicated by the issue of unethical decision making. This has resulted into a tainted reputation of the industry in the eyes of the public domain. However, research shows that the reputation has been damaged but not destroyed. If they can engage in a more ethical intensive campaign, they can be successful in the effort of restoring trust from the public. This can only be achieved through the development of ethical standards that will help them solve the conflicts of interests in a more rational way and make other company decisions in a way that would make them appear to have put the interest of the stakeholders and the consumers in consideration.
Ethics is essential at all levels of an organization. It should start from the leadership down to the lowest subordinate workers within the organization. But how can this be achieved? The Independent Committee against Corruption (55) puts emphasis on training and ethics programs within the organizations. Ethical culture involves an establishment of values that should be widely accepted by all members within the organization. If the guidelines are well established and everybody operates within the given limits and makes decisions that reflect the organization’s ethical culture, the efficiency of the organization will be enhanced. Subsequently, the profitability of the organization will increase in relation to the increased efficiency.
The Independent Committee against Corruption (55) further points out that developing an ethical culture involves a long term commitment by the management. The management should launch a program that will involve all ethical training to all levels of the workforce. Training is necessary because ethics are not rules and hence the company rules might be in place but ethics are an outrightly different entity that needs to be installed within the workforce. By training the workers on ethical issues, the organization improves its management and employee interpretation of the company rules and regulations, helps them apply the company standards that eventually assist them in avoiding fraud and corruption, familiarizes them with the ethical dilemmas that they are likely to come across during their terms of service, equips them with problem and dilemma solving analytical skills and finally allows the management to note early warning signals of unethical practices and hence enact preventive measures.
In light with the mentioned, the pharmaceutical industry can also succeed in their effort to change the reputation that they have in the eyes of the public. The way forward is by ensuring that they solve relevant problems in a more consumer friendly approach. One of the things that have caused strife between the pharmaceutical companies and their stakeholders and consumers has been a matter of research and development. Most people felt that the companies involved in this activity failed to put human welfare consideration in before engaging in research on human and animal specimens. As a solution to this, pharmaceutical companies must reinforce their ethical considerations that imply on them in terms of research and development. By strictly abiding by the rules specified above concerning the research and development ethics, the strife between the industry and the public will stop.
In addition to this, the problem that has occurred between the pharmaceutical companies and the stakeholders and the consumers was based on the prising of the drugs. Considering the fact that there exists two forms of conflict of interests of which both of them have a negative implication on the reputation of the organization, pharmaceutical companies should ensure that they ethically resolve this problem. They should at all costs try to avoid situations that would lead conflict of interests. And in situations where the conflict cannot be avoided, they should look at the most appropriate way of solving such a situation. The research by price Water House Coopers on how the industry can regain its reputation point out that the industry should ensure that their promotional activities do not only focus on the sales part of the business but also the therapeutic benefit of the drugs. This would be a good way of allowing the public to understand the cost benefit ratio.
Conclusion
The subject of ethics has great implications on the general performance of an organization. While rules are there to determine the way an employee should respond to a certain issue, ethical considerations tend to be more essential to the employees’ interpretation of the rules. It is therefore important that organizations ensure that their employees are subjected to a culture of ethics and values. This should not be done on a single level of employees but all the levels. This begins with the board of governors to the management and down to the workers. It is important that the leadership positions are torch bearers in terms of promoting ethics and values within an organization because they are the examples from which the other workers emulate. This is also essential because without ethical leadership, a business cannot create and sustain success.
Ethical leadership is also important based on the role played by the management levels of the organization. For instance, the board of governors role touches all aspects of the organization’s daily running. Unfortunately, all relevant skills and experience cannot ensure a sustained success of an organization. This was witnessed in the Enron affair where the board was very experienced and possessed all the qualities that could have been expected in a board of governors. However, the company found itself in bankruptcy. This means that the board must be founded on moral ethics so that it can be in position to inform the public on the truth of the functioning of the organization.
Therefore, ethics are essential in the success of the business. As a result, organizations should embark on the long term engagement of developing ethics learning programs and training. By doing this, the workers will be given the necessary tools that are essential in solving dilemma cases. It will also help the workers to understand the organization’s standards concerning certain situations. This will help them avoid corruption and frictions within the organization. As a result, the efficiency of the organization employees will be enhanced. Equally, the profitability of the organization will be promoted. By ensuring this, the management will not only be promoting the creation and sustenance of success for their organizations but also protecting their career development that would otherwise be jeopardized in the event of being engaged in an unethical activity.
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