Miguel Franco T.

Dimayacyac LS127 N BUSINESS ETHICS 101 Business ethics has been a field of management that has been thoroughly talked, debated, analyzed, scrutinized and studied for the past few decades. The interest of people in this field has been increasing when there are questionable actions business executives do in order to get a better share of the market and obviously, money. The recent blunder of Wall Street and other financial losses that have occurred in the history of business and trading can be linked to the realm of business ethics, though some connections are hard to draw because ethics itself has been a shady field itself. Numerous forums and lectures about business ethics have sprung like mushrooms in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis. Many believe that the bigwigs of the companies in Wall Street breached the trust people entrusted them to run the corporation for and in their behalf. Greed and power hunger have been the talk of the town as the starting point of the recent crisis. However, all of these are just speculations as none of them have been proven, as of this writing, to be guilty of such acts. Forums left and right I have heard. The forum presented by Ateneo Lex is just one of hundreds of talks about business ethics. While the speakers present topics and issues that are relevant and timely, I am still not satisfied on how the approach on business ethics is done. Maybe its just me, but I am still looking for the silver lining that will serve as the starting point for a more enlightened discussion of business ethics. The reason for my somehow dissatisfaction is the fact that in our society, there is still a sketchy line diving legality and ethics. I am not criticizing the seemingly intertwined path of law and ethics; what I am pointing out is the fact that some members of the society are equating legal actions as ethical actions. While I commend the resource persons of the Lex forum regarding business ethics for sharing their insights, experiences and personal takes regarding issues on business ethics, there is still a huge void to be filled. I do believe that no one alive today can thoroughly and completely assess how big this void is, but one thing is for sure there is this void in the realm of business ethics. This void if properly enlightened, would resolve the issue regarding how to draw the line on what is ethical or not. The firms out in the market have their own code of ethics, and it is a given that firms have their own penal system for the breach of this code, but for most of the time, this is only applicable to the lower ranked employees. If the big bosses violate the code of ethics, more often than not, it will just pass through. This happens because I believe that there is this conflict of interest that exists. The conflict arises from personal interest and professional interest. The bosses themselves will have a hard time separating their personal interest and their professional interest, thus the likelihood of breaching this code of ethics is increased. To close out, business ethics for me is an area of management that is nearly impossible to tackle objectively since we have our own personal beliefs and biases. The only thing that we can settle the issue of business ethics is we can find a way to completely remove the conflicting interests.