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The Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics

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The Financial Times Guide to Business Ethics

The comprehensive guide for making a positive impact

FT Publishing,

15 min read
9 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

How businesses with an ethics-based competitive edge succeed without compromising their principles.

Editorial Rating

9

getAbstract Rating

  • Comprehensive
  • Analytical
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Ethical businesses uphold integrity, duty, fairness, and freedom, explains author Pablo Hepworth Lloyd. For example, Johnson & Johnson wasn’t at fault when seven people died after using Tylenol that criminals contaminated with cyanide. But J&J immediately recalled and replaced Tylenol at a cost of some $100 million. Tylenol recovered almost all its lost market share in a year, demonstrating how to sustain an ethics-based competitive edge even in a crisis. Such businesses do the right things and succeed, while unethical organizations face constant risk, stress, and exposure by whistleblowers – now legally protected in most nations. Lloyd’s book can help any organization create an ethical foundation and foster a culture of integrity.

Summary

Cultures share certain moral foundations.

When anthropologist Oliver Curry examined morality in 60 societies, he found seven areas of consistency: family loyalty, group cohesion, reciprocity, bravery, respect, fairness, and property rights. Somewhat similarly, psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory posits that all cultures share six moral instincts:

  1. Be kind instead of cruel. Do no harm.
  2. Uphold fairness and justice, not exploitation.
  3. Loyally honor your allegiances, instead of backstabbing.
  4. Respect authority rather than being defiant.
  5. Look for sanctity, and avoid your society’s taboos.
  6. Uphold freedom versus oppression.

Both findings point to “intuitively moral behavior that supports cooperation within a wide range of communities.”

In short, ethical behavior amounts to doing the right thing. By definition, morals are personal values while ethics are organizational tenets, but societies’ widely held moral foundations deeply inform business ethics. Despite cultural variations about what is forbidden and what is not, these shared values illuminate how people can cooperate based on their...

About the Author

Chartered accountant, consultant and former CFO Pablo Hepworth Lloyd has co-founded and led for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including Ufi/learndirect and WorldSkills UK. An education advocate, he chairs Unloc’s Changemaker Alliance. He was awarded an OBE in 2019.

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