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Ethics in Business

Ethics in Business

Moral or ethical problems can and do arise in a business environment. Ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility should be common practice in any business. Here we provide seven principles of ethics that can be applied as a starting point to ethics in business.

These seven principles of ethics in business include:

  • Be Just – in other words, be fair.
  • Do the right thing – your actions should not be driven by self-interest.
  • Do no harm – everything you do should be beneficial to those around you and for the organisation and community, not harmful!
  • Be accountable – accept responsibility for you actions.
  • Keep your promises – which also translates to being responsible.
  • Respect your customer – they have their own unique personality, opinions, values and beliefs. Respect these.
  • Be truthful – 100% of the time.

Ready to take the survey?

“The African Public Relations Association (APRA) will be hosting the 31st APRA Conference in Kigali, Rwanda from Monday, 13 May to Friday, 17 May. The focus of the conference will be on Africa and how storytelling can help change the continent’s narrative as well as how ethics and reputation influence this narrative.

APRA, in partnership with research agency Reputation Matters, is once again investigating the importance of ethics and reputation across the continent.

“The research survey focuses on ethics and reputation on three different levels, which will help determine how these two critical factors influence storytelling and, ultimately, the narrative of Africa. We invite top-level business management and PR professionals to participate in the online survey,” says APRA president, Yomi Badejo-Okusanya.

APRA and Reputation Matters conducted a similar survey in 2018 where respondents indicated that the greatest driver of ethics on an individual level is upbringing, and 70% agreed that all employees are responsible for driving ethics in an organisation.

According to the survey, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Gift of the Givers, and Botswana received high praise as ethical entities. Notably, about a third of respondents indicated that they (personally) and their organisations have been compromised on an ethical level in the past 12 months. However, almost all of them indicated that their governments have been ethically compromised.

This year’s study will be compared to last year’s findings. The survey aims to provide a good baseline of how Africa is seen and the driving forces behind individual, business, and government decisions.

“Your response to this study is critical to measuring the importance of ethics and reputation in Africa and providing a comparison between countries. The survey results will be announced at the APRA Conference,” concludes Regine le Roux, managing director of Reputation Matters.” (research.net,2019)

Individuals can participate in the online survey here.