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Abreaction
Abusive Tactics
Accretion
Advertising
Arbitrary Actions
Arbitration Clause
Aggression
Aggressive Billing
Aggressive Bonding
Authoritative Deception
Backpeddling
Backdooring
Backside of a Deal
Baiting
Balking
Bankruptcy
Bantering
Because I Can
Being Careful
Being Prepared
Bending Rules*
Bigger is Better
Billable Hours
Biting
Bleaching*
Blowback
Boiler Plate Selling
Bootstrapping
Boundary Ethics
Burnout
Business Games
Business Ethic
Business Philosophy
Business to Business Ethics
Buttonhole
Buying Time
Calling to Account
Candor
Categorical Imperative
Cattle Call
Cashing Out*
Change Games*
Cheap
Cherry Picking
Cheating Ratio
Chiseling
Churning
Claims
Class Struggle
Clipping
Collecting
Coloring
Commitments
Communication
Complex Transactions
Concealing*
Conflict of Interest
Consideration
Consistency*
Conflict Analysis
Con Games
Conspiring With Clients
Constructive Fraud
Constructive Inefficiency
Constructive Knowledge
Constructive Taking
Constructive Provocation
Convergence
Covering*
Creep
Cunning
Criminal Enterprise
Customary Ethics*
Cutting Corners
Darwinian Ethics
Deal Breaker
Dealing Down
Deception
Defiance
Denial
Desperation*
Defecting
Delaying
Diluting Value & Service
Discrimination
Distancing
Distraction Tactics
Disrespecting
Diverting*
Dog & Pony Show
Domineering*
Drama
Drop Off
Dubious Origins
Due Consideration
Due Diligence
Dumping
Easy Excuses
Efficiency
Emotional Candy
Emotional Maturity*
Embedded
Enabling
Eristic
Error Accretion
Ethical Drift
Ethical Evaluation
Ethical Moment
Ethical Split
Evaluation Ratio
Excuses
Fairness
False Expectations
Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Fast Buck Artist
Fatiguing into Compliance
Favoritism*
Fear Mongering
FBC
Feedback
Feedback Denial
Firing Employees
Fine Distinctions
Flaying
Fleecing
Flipping
Fluff
Follow Through
Fools
Foot Dragging
Forthright
Fraud
Gaming the Client
G&T Ratios
Gifting
Giving Unsound Advice
Glib
Glorification of Struggle
Going-Off
Going-Sideways
Good Faith Dealing
Good Enough*
Gouging
Greed
Guiding*
Hassler
Hatchet Job
Having an Agenda
Hedging*
Hidden Partners
Hiding
Hijacking Emotions
Honoring Commitments
Histrionics*
Holding Out
Hording
Hotshot
Hothead
HTML Ethical
Human Nature
Hunting/Farming
Hurdles*
Hustling
Huxter
Hypnotic Techniques
Implicit Agreements
Impulse Ethics
Improvising
Incompetence
In Close Dealing
Ignoring Convention
Inherent Value
Intentions
Initial Point
intimate
Intimating
Integrity
IT Ratio
Intolerance
Jungle Ethics
Jilting
Kick-Backs
Laboring Tasks
Lackluster Performance
Laying in Wait
Leading the Client to False Expectation
Learning Curve
Learning on the Job
Lease*
Leveraged Coercion
Leveraging Sales
Loss Shifting
Low Balling
Lying to Employees
Making Claims
Making Excuses
Making Good
Manipulation
Marginalizing
Marketing Ethics
Market Will Bear
Massaging
Meeting Expectations
Meat Market
Migrating Terms
Milking
Mismanagement
Money Handling
Moral Credit*
Moralizing
Moral Hazard
Mismanagement
Mistakes
MSS
Muscling
Naive Clients
Nectar
Negligence
Nickel & Dime
Not Creative
Offset
Obsessing
Objectifying
Obstructionist
Offset
Old For New
Organizational Crime
Overbooking
Overpowering the Client
Over sizing
Oversold
Owing Up
Padding Bills
Paper Chase
Painting by the Numbers
Passive Aggressive
Passive Dishonesty
Partnerships
Patterns of Behavior
Pernicious Behavior
Personal Ethic
Personnel Sandbox
Personal Power
Perturb*
Plausible Deniability
Playing Emotions
Playing the Numbers
Playing Games
Pleading Innocence
Permissions
Phantom Billing
PLC
POC
Powering Through
Positioning Sale*
Predatory Businesses
Predatory Encroachment
Price Changes
Problem Solving Ethics
Productivity
Professional Ethics
Professional Knowledge
Professionalism
Proprietary Information
Protocol & Decorum
Provoking/Exploiting
Puffery
Push Down
Push Through
Putting On A Production
Quid Pro Quo
Radical Optimization
Raiding
Rationalizing
Reactivity
Reasonable Care
Reasoning Behavior
Reciprocity
Receipts
Reflective Ethics
Refunds
Reliability
Reputation
Responsibility
Responsiveness/Response Time
Retribution & Exploitation
Returns
Risk
Romancing
Rough Trade
Running a Game, Run Around
Salting
scam
Scripting
scheduling
Selling the Business
setting off
Separation
shady
Shared Values
Sharked
Shell Game
Shifty
shoddy
shortfall
shortchanging
silence & complicity
Signs
skating
skittering
smooth selling
Snowing
Social Responsibility
Social Struggles
Spiral Billing
spirit of sale
Spoofing
staging
standards
steering
Stocking Parts
Story Telling
straight shooter
Stripping Value
struggle
survival ethics
Sweetheart Dealing
swept
Swiping Tactics
Sympathy & Kindness
System Houses
tactical ignorance
Tactical Inefficiency
Tactical Ignorance
taking advantage
taking liberties
taking responsibility
Temptation
Theory of Business Ethics
Tit for Tat
Tolerance Quotient
Tough Choices
Tough Customers
Toxic Personal ties
Tracking
Trading
trade secrets
Transference
transparency
Traveling Time
Trust
truth
Types of Businesses
Understaffing
Unfair Advantage
Unpleasant Tasks
Update
Up front
Upselling
Using Personal Power
Value
Value to Profit Ratio
Wall Job
Warranty
Web site Copyright Issues
What If?
What the Client is
Willing
to Pay
Wheeling & Dealing
What the Market Will Bear
Willing Fools
Whimsy
Whimsical Fairness
White Lies
Winners & Losers
Withholding Information
Work Ethic
Working Slowly
WTD
Young Blood
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Small Business Ethics
S. E. Bromberg
The evolution of ethics chronicles a long history of problems related to the use (and misuse) of power, money and emotions. Some businesses create conflict in the process of making money, while others create a peaceful environment in which a business can grow and prosper. Being ethical means having fewer problems, less stress and more respect from the buying public. Respect and acceptance in a community derives certain rare "nectars of civilization" that can make the business experience rewarding beyond monetary considerations. A fundamental choice business people must make is whether to focus on short-terms gains or the long-term stability and growth an ethical business produces. The object of an ethical business is to build a stable environment that minimizes unexpected problems and maximize peace, prosperity and productivity.
Philosophical ethics is a world away from the practical ethics of business. Ethical rules have evolved (in real-time, not in theory) from the effects of bad management, greed, immaturity and inefficient actions. Business ethics are a function of experience, of what works and what does not. Real-time circumstances sometimes force a businessperson to bend the rules in order to survive. There are demands on the businessperson other than raw survival that shape business ethics. The term "flow" for example is a consideration in the practical ethics of business. If a defect is discovered on an assembly line that degrades a product, though not seriously, one does not simply shut down production so that the product can meet the ideal.
(see business philosophy for conventional ethical perspectives)
There are many intervening problems in day-to-day business that prevent business people from being totally ethical, consistent and fair. The idea of ethics is a dynamic concept, so it is difficult to determine in the moment what is ethical and what is not. What is more important to know from an ethical standpoint is whether a deviation from the ideal is temporary, frequently repeated or a permanent business strategy.
It must be remembered business ethics is about the human qualities of a businessperson — not the angelic qualities. As such, when a businessperson is overwhelmed, one must expect the possibility that ethical rules will be temporarily bent. For example, you are overwhelmed with work, your child is sick and you need to get home right away … but you must finish billing out some work you performed for a customer in order to receive the check. You do not know exactly how much they owe you, but it would be un-businesslike to simply let the client leave and collect later. So, you pick a high number that covers all the possibilities. The bill technically is not consistent with your reputation for fairness and price, but it is a price you simply must charge to plow through you work and get on to more important tasks. This is known as an "ethical lapse" — a short-term and rare occurrence in your business experience. This is to say, ethics for a businessperson is not about some philosophical idea of the mind. Rather, it is about trying to attain a reasonable balance between the need to survive (and make a profit) and meeting the ideal of ethical action.
Reminder: When inquiring into ethical behavior, "one does not study and follow ethical rules so they can be used against you by others with self-serving or predatory intentions."
The Business Ethics Learning Curve
Business ethics are more complex than they appear to be. Buying and selling requires knowledge, intelligence, savvy and experience. There is a learning curve to business. When a person goes to the supermarket, he or she enters into a business world where a certain knowledge of produce and products is necessary to make sensible choices. Young consumers start at the bottom rung of a learning process that extends throughout a lifetime. For instance, a supermarket marks goods in a way that creates confusion and inspires “impulse” purchases. The buyer subsequently learns to look more carefully at labels. The next rung of the business experience ladder extends to the supermarket’s own buyer. The grocery store manager might himself be an inexperienced buyer of produce. His supplier promises him good fruit but instead supplies him with marginal or tasteless fruit. Subsequently, the supermarket’s buyer takes the time to open each box of fruit at the wholesaler and taste the fruit. The wholesaler, who is in the next rung, is also always learning about business (but at a higher level of risk). He pushes the tasteless fruit because of a farm that went to great lengths to deceive and swindle him, threatening the survival of his company. The next time he makes a big purchase, he makes sure his representative is not naive and distractible.
Everyone who participates in the buying-and-selling dynamic needs knowledge, experience and savvy to maximize their gains. Everyone in business “pays their dues” as a result of inexperience. To simply brand a grocery retailer who misrepresents the quality of his fruit as “unethical” understates the complexity of business.
Ethical and unethical actions can be broken down into smaller pieces: [Ed, note Describe each piece here.] Customary ethics may define mixing good fruit with bad fruit as a harmless business tactic of a grocer. But this does not negate the fact that it is ethically questionably behavior and a shady business practice that would not have needed to occur if the grocer were more competent and experienced.
The Benefits of Ethical Practices
Why ethics in business? Ethical guidelines tend to maximize profits while minimizing the conflict and disruptions that slow business growth. Ethical practices also protect against legal trouble, sustain good health and keep away the kinds of financial predators that can scar an individual and destroy a business. When one is acting from as ethical base, it is easy to recognize and experience contrast when dealing with those acting unethically. Learning to recognize (and thereby avoid) dishonest and predatory business people is one of the advantages of ethical behavior.
The ethical nature of a small business can be broken down into three categories: the legitimate businesses, the criminal enterprise and those that operate in the gray areas between the two. Those who would lean toward the latter two categories risk allowing deception to become a way of life. Going down this path can ultimately ruin a business as occasional temptations subtly transform a business into a criminal enterprise.
Although a business may appear to be successful and prosperous, there are harmful ramifications when behaving unethically. One might appear to be a successful contractor, when in fact that person’s focus is on cheating the customer. That may result in more income, but the associated negatives include damaged health, client hassles and legal actions — not to mention a highly undesirable reputation within the local community. While crime may pay, those who are not good at it will suffer severe repercussions.
Of the nearly two hundred categories to be listed to the left as links, the ethicality of business actions using a variety of subcategories to highlight a particular activity. A business activity can be reputable, disreputable or shady. Some actions are predatory, while others are outright criminal. Some activities that seem unethical, such as a grocer selling low-quality vegetables while creating high-quality expectations, are customarily acceptable practices. This brings to light the fact that there are standards of the industry in all business categories that mitigate the ethicality of a sales tactic. Part of the ethical evaluation of an action might be whether it is a “professional” or “unprofessional” one.EXAMPLE 1
Blustering is a method used by unscrupulous business to power their way through negotiations. It raises the conversation from a rational level to an emotional one. Unless a client has considerable experience with this tactic they run the risk of ensnaring themselves in an ugly situation. Learning to be a capable negotiator is like learning the martial arts. Once a client enters into a heated argument they put themselves on an emotional plane where they can be easily manipulated and driven to overreact. Determining the ethically of blustering is a complex undertaking particularly because negotiating goods and service understandably takes intelligence, savvy and skill. One cannot always blame the business person for personal weaknesses. If a customer loses their grip on their emotions it might seem it is their own fault. There were likely clues in the character of the business person that should have alerted the client to trouble down the road. In theory, this tactic might be considered unethical because it is a premeditated exploitation of a client. In down to earth terms it is an ethically questionable action, there are too many variables to firmly state it is unethical.
Links related to blustering
- Aggression
- Manipulation
- Intimidation
- Opportunistic
- Threats
- Provoking/exploiting
- Conflict
- Fear Mongering
- Overpowering
- Exercise of power
- Unprofessional
- Marginal business practice
- Predatory business practices
- Immaturity
Consequence of blustering:
Loss of reputation, loss of business; reinforcing and perpetrating aggressive attitudes clients can sense, law suits, retaliation, outright violence, health issues and emotional scaring that comes of repeated conflict. A business cannot optimally grow and flourish if its energies are diverted into repeated conflicts.Blustering is not an optimal business practice. It deviates from the maxim "do business in a business like way." Business people who are professionals follow standard protocols when trouble arises, and they do it with decorum that gives their arguments power in negotiations with clients
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Example 2
Concealing information is a form of deception. This has been a morally questionable activity as long as societies have existed.
Soft concealment involves activities that customary ethics regards as acceptable within limits. Nevertheless, in order for a society to evolve even customary ethics must change to accommodate the civilizing process at work around the world.
Practical considerations are the source of much concealment. Contractors, for instance, do not reveal every detail of error they have made. Since the buying public does not understand the complexity of the work being performed, they can emotionally "go-off" over practically nothing. Business people learn over long periods of time not to overload the client with every detail of their work. It causes more trouble than it is work. In politics the thrust of this argument is put forth in the sausage paradigm. It goes to the effect that if you love sausage, don't watch how it is made. The day to day practicality of the political process is made up of element that are not always pretty, but are necessary in today's political activities.
- Predatory business practice
- Omissions
- Deception
- Initial Point
- Customary Ethics
- Constructive Taking
- Marginal Business Practices
Consequences of deception:Short term deceptions appear to be an ordinary part of business, particularly where it is necessary to conceal the cost of materials and products from the customer. There are deceptions of the moment that are perpetrated and errors made due to lack of attention.
Long-term patterns of deception can generally be said to lead to a whole array of manipulations, monetary extractions, and aggressive billing tactics. Maintaining al long-term business more often than not requires striking a balance between honesty and profits.
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Example 3
A whimsical action can sometimes be an unethical action but right and wrong are sometime different between the theoretical world of ethics and the down to earth world of work and struggle. When a business person becomes overwhelmed with work they adopt certain strategies to get of the mess. For example, there is a pile of billing invoices to send out but there simply is not time enough to be exact when writing down the material costs .There may not even be time enough to remember what the materials were that went into say the repair of an automobile. But a professional service writer knows fairly accurately the time involved in the job and materials used. Being under pressure and exhausted the service writer might be more demanding about making sure he is fully paid, making the bill slightly more expensive than normal. Sometimes the service writer might be interrupted by a particularly annoying customer demanding a bill right now. Well, they get a bill but with a few extra charges included. Here the owner whimsically twisted the knife deriving some satisfaction in the process brightening his dreary world of work. Whimsy can occur as an emotional release from extraordinary tensions of the day. Think of it this way, you have been overwhelmed and badgered by demands all day. You head out to lunch in your commercial vehicle. There are no parking spots but there is a place in a yellow loading zone open to you. You whimsically assert your power to commandeer the space for non commercial purposes. There is an emotional release that helps sooth the pain of the day in this exercise of power. The infraction of taking the space is in theory unethical but in practice it is legal and no one can do anything about it. Whimsy is such a rare event as to be a minor problem in business.
Consequences:
Few if any. Whimsy by definition is a rare phenomena in business. Even in a large multi national cooperation whimsy has its place. Here whimsy might cause a bill to be increased by $100,000. But the client played a part in pushing the whimsy button of the corporate executive. The source of the overcharge derived from a violation of protocols and decorum on the part of the client. There are reasons why "business must be done in a business like way" using the most cordial of communications—things cost less, and the arbitrariness of whimsy is put to rest.
Customary Ethics
These are ethics that are culturally acceptable while at the same time being in violation of contemporary ethical reasoning. In other words real-time ethics conflicts with ethical theory. For example, supermarkets will sell fruits and vegetables that look good but are of inferior quality. They do this many times in response to their own buyer making bad choices at the wholesaler. In most cases of customary ethics real harm is not intended. Some aspects of life are learned by experience. Buying a house is another place where first time buyers pay more than they should, and ask to few questions. In real time ethics (because of intense competition) , total honesty works to the disadvantage of an honest broker. It is not customary nor required by law that business people have to disclose every detail of a contractual agreement. Customary ethics might say these are acceptable practices but a conventional ethicist might claim they are not. After all there is no public outcry towards realtors or supermarkets concerning their business practices. There are a couple of significant problems with perpetuating some forms of customary ethics. First, there is the problem of business becoming a competitive game in which the "glorification of struggle" becomes the ethical standard of conduct. Here cheating becomes a virtue and success at cheating a badge of honor. Second, traditions and customs of a predatory nature hold the society down and keep society from reaching higher forms of social evolution. This is to say social organization moves from self-serving predation towards more enlightened forms of self-interest and social cooperation.
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- Learning Curve
- Constructive taking
- Plausible Deniability
- Going sideways
- Forthright
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Recommended Business Ethics Web Sites
Dr. Chris Mc Donald, Down to Earth to the point ethics writing
Small Business Ethics by S.E. Bromberg is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.businessethics.net.Format may be modified
January 25, 2009 also www.engineering.us