The change of the perception towards business ethics is so apparent today. The business community in the 1980’s perceived business ethics as a contradiction in terms. Those who practise them were oftenly seen as naïve and worst, unambitious. This is totally vice versa to the current thinking. For instance, Professor Richard DeGeorge of the University of Kansas shatters the myth of business ethics being a contradiction in terms by using simple logical analogy. He stated that if

The Economist 22nd April 2000 revealed that some companies had also suffered from their own unethical conduct. Shell for example had suffered a couple of blows to its reputation in 1995. One from its attempted disposal of the Bruent Spar oil ring in the North Sea. The other one was over the company’s failure to oppose Nigerian Government’s execution of a human rights activist (Ken Saro-Wiwa) in a part of Nigeria where Shell had extensive operations. Shell was forced to rewrite its business principles and had created an elaborate mechanism to implement them.

business is viewed a amoral i.e. it is not expected to behave according to the moral rules and it is not appropriate to do whatever necessary to increase profit, then there would be no surprise when a business acted immorally. The uncovering of bribes and corruption would not be news.

Another interesting revelation is about trucking firms in the US. In the article “The Value of Values” published in Fleet Owner November 1999, David Cullen admitted that even companies like the trucking companies, which have managed to get so far without social conscience are now faced with the increasingly awareness and demands as regards to ethical practice. He said that in the new millennium, corporations would be operating under many watchful and demanding eyes. As regards to the trucking industry per se they are obliged to act ethically towards 6 sets of stakeholders: owners / shareholders / investors; employees / contractors; customers; suppliers / vendors; local community and society in general. It is interesting to know that all these are being stressed and explained in specially conducted programs for people in various fleet industry.

Some topics in this essay:
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