Ethical conduct and social responsibility in Administration.
Ethics comes from the greek ethica or ethice, part of philosophy that studies customs; moral, from the latin moralis, related to customs. From this, we can state that ethics or morals refers to good customs.
In the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spanish Language, we find the following definition of ethics: "Part of philosophy that talks about morality and the duties of men". As a result, we can state that ethics is "the moral principles code that prescribes norms related to whatever is good or bad, right or wrong, in the behavior of people".
Ethics study the human conduct, its norms, duties and rights related to the society in which they occur. Moreover, it indicates what you "must" or "mustn't" do in a determined society.
Harold Koontz established the following applications and distinctions when dealing with the concept of ethics:
- Personal ethics: it refers to the rules through which an individual leads his/her personal life.
- Accounting ethics: it refers to the code which guides the professional conduct of accountants.
- Enterprise ethics: this is related to the truth and justice and it possesses several aspects, such as the expectations of society, loyal competition, publicity, public relations, social responsibilities, the autonomy of consumers and the behavior of enterprises both in their country of origin as well as in a foreign one.
Ethical conduct is that which society accepts as "right" or "correct" in reference to the current moral code.
However, the social responsibility is the duty of an enterprise to execute actions that serve both its own interests as well as those of the affected society through its activities. In other words, we can say it is the serious consideration of the impact to society of such enterprise actions.
When speaking about the social responsibility of the organization, there are two points of view: the classical, which points out that the only social responsibility of Administration is to maximize the utilities of the enterprise, and the social-economic, which states that the social responsibilities of Administration go beyond the achievement of utilities, to seek protection and improving the welfare of society in general.
