Do you take an ethical approach to business, or do ethics not matter? I think that taking an ethical approach is both good for business and spirit. There is nothing wrong with making money by helping people and being a good person. I find a problem that there is too many people out there trying to or successfully making money by doing bad things. These things might not be deemed "bad" but might fall on the line of ethics... If you have any experiences where you think ethics should have been mentioned, post them up. Here's my story.. GOOD ETHICS I was working with a client on a project. The client decided to end early because they could not afford to complete the project at the negotiated price. I did not incur any loss, so I did not push for contractual obligation penalties. I also turned over files rather than documents which made it easier for the client to go to my replacement and get it cheaper. I didn't care about penalizing my competition, I felt that it was good ethics to turn over the files rather than documents so that my client could get his project done with or with out me for his budget. BAD ETHICS My mercedes benz had picked up a huge nail at the mercedes benz of tampa parking lot on the way into the service bay. It happened on their property, and they refused to pay for it to be fixed. They then told me I needed to have it towed or drive it home somewhere else because it was 40 min to close and no one was there. This is HORRIBLE ethics. They should have bent down and kissed the dirt off my feet for buying their rediculously over priced oil changes at $500 a pop. Never a nice hello, or nothing. Just rude, idiotic drunks running around swearing at customers. STay away from mercedes benz of tampa. I was stuck with a $70 repair bill and a ruined tire which turned out to be another $250 totaling way to flipping much for their lack of keeping their entrance clean of wrecked vehicular debris.
Ethics really does matter. If you don't have the moral conscious to run your business correctly, you will lose in the end. Even corporations who had little to no conscious are all of a sudden going green to act as IF. lol
I think I'm sitting on the fence to be honest. I'm not super ethical, I don't stop and think whether Jesus would do it, but I would never scam someone or give them substandard services/goods. I just can't stand people who do that, and I wouldn't want to become one of those people...
I agree that sometimes the boundary line of ethics is hard to find. You have to balance out ethics with the need to survive as our economy dictates to many. I'm sure there are more people trying to make money on the internet now more than ever due to the change in the economy and the need for additional income. When your computer is sitting right there, and you hear stories about people making $1,000 days left and right it is very enticing to get "IN" on this "GAME". This is causing a huge flux in ethics and changing the relevancy content regarding the internet environment. We need to guide the new breeds into relevant marketing efforts or the internet could be rendered "sour" and start turning off new users. There is some major ethical issues when it comes to advertising. Regarding my site and my control over ethics, as long as its legal I'll let you add your website. I check every site myself to ensure this as my companies well being is on the line with each submission.
I always tend to favour the customer and not myself in my dealings and it kind of pays off. People appreciate it and I get loads of referrals.
For me ethics is "Just put yourself in the other peroson's shoes and try to feel his/her joy or pain." Are you comfortable?