When we talk about ethics violations, we immediately think of executive management, or some kind of Wall Street scandal, and we rarely realize that it happens more frequently in the lower half of the workforce than in the tower of crystal. Ethical violations in inventory management are committed by:
1. Knowingly giving inaccurate information to customers or prospects about the price of storage space or other services, and the status of your inventory.
2. Favoring one supplier over another when purchasing goods or services because you have a friend who works for the preferred supplier or because of possible financial gain.
3. Concealment of damaged products that go out in a shipment.
4. Manipulate inventory figures and levels when the customer questions their inventory levels or when management inquires about inventory status.
5. Work the slowdown to earn overtime.
6. Give preferential treatment to certain employees for possible future earnings and friendship.
These are just a few examples and I’m pretty sure if you look closely at your organization you can find many more. Why do these ethical violations occur? One of the reasons is the lack of a code of ethics. The code of ethics is a specific set of professional behaviors and values that employees must know and respect, including confidentiality, accuracy, privacy, and integrity. Large organizations have a code of ethics, but violations occur because standards are not enforced or management feels the violation is not worth it.
Small and medium-sized organizations lack a code of ethics program because they either do not know how to develop one, it is not important to them, or it is too expensive in terms of finances and manpower.
Enron and Goldman Sachs are good examples of why having a code of business ethics is important. In the business world, the bottom line is to make money and there is nothing wrong with that, but when you consume your organization and you take the attitude of doing it at any cost, then the problem appears and people will do what. be. They can be ethical or unethical to make money.
A code of ethics will keep people within certain limits of what is acceptable in the organization in terms of behavior and business practices. The reality in the corporate world is that profits rule and as long as shareholders are happy and there is full employment in companies, nobody seems to care and ethics take a back seat to everything else.
With so much talk today about morality in business and the state of the world’s financial affairs, ethics are even more important today than ever before. Journalists are on the lookout for the next business scandal and will uncover every stone to expose one, after all, it sells news. Traveling and working in Asia, I have found that Asian culture is less sensitive to the actions of business, it is not that they do not care, it just does not consume all their waking moments and they are not quick to judge like Western nations.
Operating with honest principles and ethics is no less profitable than operating unethically. LeClair, Ferrell, and Fraedrich, in their book Integrity Management (1998), describe five well-known and successful companies that have invested organizational resources and are profiting and operating ethically, three of which are listed below that you may recognize;
1. Hershey Foods
2. Home Depot
3. Waste management
The old myth and saying “it’s not personal, it’s just a business” is as empty then as it is now. Business is personal, especially when you take the time to build a business relationship with suppliers and customers to the point where they trust you, and acting unethically will certainly destroy the trust they had in your product or services and make it almost impossible revival.