Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Ethics: Exploring a Framework

In his article "Ethics in Practice," Kenneth Andrews describes three challenges associated with creating an ethical business environment. The first challenge to businesses is to develop managers and employees as moral, ethical individuals. Charging a business organization with such development is an arduous task, but it must be addressed if an ethical organizational environment is to be created. Organizations are made up of people and the clearest way to create ethical organizations is to develop ethical members. The second challenge that Andrews describes relates to the corporation's environment. A corporation is a business organization in which people influence each other and establish accepted values and ways of doing things. The organization needs to build an environment or culture in which the community shares a clearly defined strategy, values, and standards of conduct. The leaders of the organization have an essential role in shaping this community. Andrews' third aspect of creating an ethical business environment is to formulate and implement explicit ethical policies and to provide safeguards to ensure that these polices are observed. As others have said, the emphasis on ethics begins at the top of the organization and cascades down and through the members.