Impact of Ethics and Sustainability on Business

Question: Describe about the Impact of Ethics and Sustainability on Business. Answer: Introduction It is observed that business ethics refers to the taking the right course. It is evident that while developing or expanding a business, the organization needs to focus on the ethical factors that could influence the business. This may include organizations production, business procedures and organizational behavior with the communities and the customers. It is also observed that sustainability could be about meeting the challenge of ensuring that future generation could enjoy the same quality or developed quality of the life style. Therefore, it can be mentioned that sustainability usually includes a long-term perspective on balancing the economic, social as well as the environmental impact of the business. The current report focuses impact of the business decisions on the stakeholders in terms of the sustainability and ethics. The report also provides the discussion on the major issues involved in the practice as well as decisions. Outlining the impact of the business decisions or practices on the stakeholders As put forward by Flora, Bonitz and Ribeiro (2013), the corporate social responsibility describe the way that business consider the finance, social as well as the environmental impact of the decisions and actions. This could be a significant issue in the current market since the mangers, leaders and the employees started to acknowledge the role that economic activities have in terms of environmental and social well-being. Furthermore, it has been identified that to increase the brand value and popularity, the brand takes help of CSR activities. As put forward by Moorthy and Jeyabalan (2012), a sustainable business profile could be more preferable and embraced by the customers. On the contrary, MacVaugh and Norton (2012) modern organizations have adopted the idea of social responsibility within their community. This happens when the organizations sense ethical responsibility for the interest and welfare of the society or the community. For example, the organization like Life Drugs imp lemented this philosophy to bring the positive change to their stakeholders live. The company takes the imitative of cleaning the environment, managing charitable donations and participating in the community events. This could result in community benefits. This means that the company gains a sense of community loyalty, which increases their brand value. Therefore, it can be mentioned that implementation of the sustainability in business is an effective idea to achieve sustainable growth in the business. On the contrary, I have also observed that products decisions could largely influence the stakeholders and may provide significant benefits to the customers and benefits. The investors usually want good quality of products that could return expected amount of profits. Hence, the customers are largely concerned with the quality of the products and pricing and other value added services. This, I could explain with an example; if the company Life Drug had to go through a large class-action suit, as their best hard drug is proved to affecting the patients. It was further found that organization neglected the early lab tests warning that created such as potential effect. Hence, this inadequate decision to sell the product in the market led to negative impact to investors because the stock price went down. Identifying the major issues involved in the practice and decision It has been identified that due to the increased emphasis on the business ethics over the last three decades. Consequently, the business is going through the troubles due to the lack of proper direction as well as issues like logic and reasons. The major issues that business deals with are professional ethics and employee right issues that can be further divided into different categories. On the contrary, the business faces some functional issues. In addition to this, the organizations in the current era also deal with the issues such as suppler and customer relations. The workers and the employees should consider the ethical issues that are involved with their relationships between suppliers as well as the customers. In this context, Ferrell and Fraedrich (2015) commented that business owners need to considers whether it is ethical to do business with the suppliers who tend to maintain unethical practices. In addition, at the time of dealing with the customers and business people mu st ensure that they could utilize their information appropriately. For example, the organization should not show any false content in the advertisement while promoting the products. Akrivou and Bradbury-Huang (201) focuses on the copyright and the patent issues. As stated by Schaltegger, Ldeke-Freund and Hansen (2012), cutting down the edge organizations in the tech industry could sometimes face aggressive patent litigations. The organizations could sit on the parent for years and they hope that another firm inadvertently violets them, to receive easy money through patent as well as copyright lawsuit. Apart from the functional issues, the organizations have to deal with some legal issues filed by government of the country. For example, in the recent time Coca Cola in Indian market would pump a huge amount of fresh water from the underground water table. This practice has led to groundwater levels in the area of dropping to critical. This incident instigated the local residents especially who are farmers. Agriculture sector suffer from the crises of water. Therefore, when the organization gets into the legal trouble, they might lose their market share (Biedenweg, Monroe and Oxarart 2013). Identifying any legislations which prohibits/supports the practices While running the business in both domestic as well as the global environment, the organizations would have to implement certain regulations imposed by the trading council or the government the country. For example, a]n increase in the corporation tax has a particular effect as in increase in the cost. It is observed that the business could pass some of this tax on to the customers in higher price; nevertheless, it could affect the bottom line. On the contrary, it is observed that anti-trust and competition laws have certain effect on the organizations. Hence, the organizations require the employees to comply with the anti-trust as well as competition laws of the countries where the organizations run the business. However, the significant legislation faced by the companies in the current era of business is the taxation (Beckmann, Hielscher and Pies 2014). Conversely, I have found a real example, the country legislation have less influence on the business. For instance, David Cameron told Federation of Small Business conference that almost 300 rules are affecting the business need to be amended (Gov.uk 2016). The declaration makes it clear that country is going impose new regulations on the business, which could bring profit to the organization or put pressure on them. Providing the recommendation The organizations need to implement certain policies and procedures that are related to business practices and ethics. Firstly, the all units involved in the organization or the business should implement the ethics are effective for the organizations and stakeholders. Practice through benchmarking- When it comes to applying the best practices, the firms could do it through benchmarking, which could allow the business to compare with other successful buinsss.ths also help to highlight the areas that need improvement. Likewise, some other business pracfices could help the business to increase the growth and sustain the business. The business practices include forecasting, financial planning, strategic planning and performance monitoring. Summary On the completion of the report, it can be added that ethics are a set of moral standards that organizations could rely on reaching conclusion and implementing the decisions. In a competitive business environment, the ethics could be a key factor in responsible business decision making. The discussion helps to learn that by maintaining high ethical standards, the business could provide benefits to external as well as the internal stakeholders of the business. Conversely, environmental sustainability in the business field includes the practice of making decisions that are in the favor of protecting natural world. Reference list: Akrivou, K. and Bradbury-Huang, H., 2015. Educating integrated catalysts: Transforming business schools toward ethics and sustainability.Academy of Management Learning Education,14(2), pp.222-240. Beckmann, M., Hielscher, S. and Pies, I., 2014. Commitment Strategies for Sustainability: How Business Firms Can Transform Trade?Offs Into WinWin Outcomes.Business Strategy and the Environment,23(1), pp.18-37. Biedenweg, K., Monroe, M.C. and Oxarart, A., 2013. The importance of teaching ethics of sustainability.International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education,14(1), pp.6-14. Ferrell, O.C. and Fraedrich, J., 2015.Business ethics: Ethical decision making cases. Nelson Education. Flora, G., Bonitz, J. and Ribeiro, K., 2013. Ethics Sustainability. Gov.uk. (2016).Government welcomes business-led plan to cut EU red tape - Press releases - GOV.UK. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-welcomes-business-led-plan-to-cut-eu-red-tape [Accessed 27 Nov. 2016]. MacVaugh, J. and Norton, M., 2012. Introducing sustainability into business education contexts using active learning.International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education,13(1), pp.72-87. Moorthy, R. and Jeyabalan, G., 2012. Ethics and sustainability: a review of water policy and management. Schaltegger, S., Ldeke-Freund, F. and Hansen, E.G., 2012. Business cases for sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability.International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development,6(2), pp.95-119.