Question

After the massive ethical misconduct of companies in the late 1990’s, governments stepped in to regulate large companies. Officials of midsize and small companies, for the most part, still have the autonomy to act as ethically or unethically as they please. In your opinion, is this good? Why or why not?

Answer 1

ANSWER:

Ethics refers to a system of moral rules or principles of behaviour which includes doing the right thing in the right approach. In my opinion it is not good that the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) hold the autonomy to act as ethically or unethically. Today the unethical behaviour has indeed become prevalent in all sizes of the business, and they pose major risks to business as well as their stakeholders. The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are in a more vulnerable position with regard to fraud, corruption, and other unethical practices. This is attributed to the fact that they tend to be small in size and they need to survive, they experience hurdles. Since they lack the funds, strategic information and relevant alliances to implement ethical principles thus are more vulnerable to the practice and consequences of unethical business behaviour. Thus due to their limited finances and funding sources, size, dependence on sometimes overpowering customers, dependence on word-of-mouth strategies to market products, difficulty in building a reputation and their tendency to take shortcuts when doing business.