“Business ethics in the workplace is about prioritizing workplace moral values and ensuring that employees align their behavior with these values - its values of management. Yet there are many myths abound about business ethics and the majority of these come from a general confusion about the concept of ethics, while other myths come about from constricted or one-dimensional views of ethical predicaments”. (McNamara, n.d.).
The first myth of business ethics says that it is more of a focus on religion than effective management. “Altering people’s values or souls is not the aim of an organization ethics program however managing values and conflict among them is…” (Kirrane, 1990). Business ethics should be about conflict resolution and value management.
Certain other segments of people in management believe that business ethics equals corporate social responsibility. That however is not the case. In fact corporate social responsibility is only a small part of the concept of business ethics. Corporate social responsibility concerns itself with business management and society interfacing and not at all with ethics in the workplace, even though both concepts fall under the field of business ethics. “Business ethics is an application of ethics in the corporate community and also a way to determine business responsibilities. It identifies important business and social issues along with business critique”. (McNamara, n.d.). Management of practical matters of ethics in the workplace such as updating procedures and policies and approaches to resolving ethical dilemmas are not addressed in writings of social responsibility (McNamara, n.d.).
One other myth is that there is little relevance in supervisors managing subordinates on business ethics in the workplace. Workplace ethics management involves being able to identify and prioritize values that guide organizational