DISCUSS THE BASICS OF VALUES,ETHICS AND CULTURE IN BUSINESS.USEFUL FOR BEGINNERS STUDYING COMMERCE AND MANAGEMENT.

1. VALUES, ETHICS &CULTURE
UG 1 Semester
Farook College
July 2016

2. Values
• Values are principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of
what is important in life.
• Important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the member of
a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable.
Values have major influence on person's behaviour and attitude and
serve as broad guidelines in all situations.
Some common business values are
fairness, innovation and community involvement.
Values provide the basis for judgments about what is important for the
individual/organization to succeed in the life/its core business.
• Examples of values includes four organizational values-loyalty, duty,
selfless service, and integrity-and four individual values- commitment,
competence, candour, and courage.

3. • values are acquired in childhood and manifest
themselves on our campuses as permanent
perceptions that shape and influence the nature of our
behaviours.
• Values involve emotion, knowledge, thought, and
ultimately choice of response.
• Values vary between individuals and, because values
govern behaviour, they colour the way individuals view
and respond to their world.
• It is important to understand the impact values have on
choice. While values can, and do, change over time,
they represent a significant component of personality.

4. Ethics
• Ethics refers to the study of good and evil, right
and wrong, just and unjust actions of people.
• Ethics as a matter of fact deal with certain
standards of human conduct and rules.
• It deals with the ideals involved in human
conduct.
• To behave ethically is to behave in a manner that
is consistent with what is generally considered to
be right or moral. Ethical behavior is the bedrock
of mutual trust

5. Cont….
• Derived from Greek word ethikos meaning custom or character
• Oxford dictionary defines it as a code of behaviour considered
correct.
• The basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent
human conduct. It includes study of universal values such as the
essential equality of all men and women, human or natural rights,
obedience to the law of land, concern for health and safety.
• An area of study that deals with ideas about what is good and bad
behaviour : a branch of philosophy dealing with what is morally
right or wrong.
• Ethics is the discipline that examines one’s moral standards or the
moral standards of the society.

6. Definition
Ethics are moral guidelines which govern good behaviour.
So behaving ethically is doing what is morally right
Behaving ethically in business is widely regarded as good business
practice. To provide you with a couple of quotes:

7. Culture
• Broadly, social heritage of a group (organized community or
society).
• It is a pattern of responses discovered, developed, or
invented during the group's history
of handling problems which arise from interactions among
its members, and between them and their environment.
• These responses are considered the correct way to
perceive, feel, think, and act, and are passed on to the new
members through immersion and teaching.
• Culture determines what is acceptable or unacceptable,
important or unimportant, right or wrong, workable or
unworkable.

8. Culture
• Man made part of the envt.
• Comprised of assumptions, values, norms and
behaviours.
• Types of culture
– According to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld
• Normative culture
• Pragmatic culture
• Academy culture- University
• Baseball team culture-investment banking
• Club culture- Armed Forces
• Fortress culture-loan and saving companies

9. Values, Culture and ethics
• Values are personal in nature
• High values leads to objective and fair decision
making.
• It varies from manager to manager
• Modification of values are required for successful
strategy formulation
• All these terms are interrelated
• Each culture has its own ethical practices
• Study of culture is inevitable for studying ethics

10. Culture and organisation
• Ogn culture is the personality of the ogn
• It denotes the climate, the atmosphere, the
mental attitude shared by the members of the
organisation
• Every organisation has a culture
• A sound culture is essential for radical changes
• Culture of an MNC, Educational institution and
section 25 company is different

11. Balanced corporate culture
• Top down mgt with employee involvement
• Customer responsiveness and consistency in
policies
• Short term performance plus long term
growth
• Innovativeness and reliability

12. Business Ethics
• Right or wrong in the workplace.
• It does not differ from generally accepted
norms of good or bad practices.
• If dishonesty is considered to be unethical in
the society, then any business person who is
dishonest with any stakeholder is assumed to
be unethical.

13. Theories of ethics
• Theory of moral unity
– Business actions should be judged by the general
ethical standards of the society. There exists only
one set of ethical standards.
Theory of amorality
It says that actions of businesspeople need not be
guided by general ethical standards. It depends on
the person and the situation and all those actions
are distilled by the market

14. Sources of Ethical Norms
14
Fellow Workers
Family
Friends
The Law
Regions of
Country
Profession
Employer
Society at Large
Fellow Workers
Religious
Beliefs
The Individual
Conscience

15. Ethics and the Law
15
• Law and ethics have a common aim- defining
proper and improper behaviour.
• Law often represents an ethical minimum
• Ethics often represents a standard that
exceeds the legal minimum.
• Legal rules help promote ethical bahaviour in
organisations.

16. Acts in India
• F E M A 1999
• The Companies Act 1956
• The competition Act,2002
• The consumer protection act,1986
• The environment protection act,1986
• The essential commodities act,1955

17. Ethics and Morality are different:
• Ethics – a kind of investigation and includes
both the activity of investigating and the
results of that investigation.
• Morality is the subject matter that ethics
investigates.

18. Characteristics of Business Ethics
Discipline
Art & Science
Dynamic
Ancient Concept
Based on social realities and customs
Human Aspects
Universal application
Develops personal dignity
Differ with individual perspectives
Keeps harmony