Decision Making For Dummies

Chapter 19

Setting Ethical Standards

In This Chapter

Understanding what constitutes ethical business conduct

Uncovering pressures that lead to unethical decisions

Establishing formal ethical guidelines

Creating an ethical business culture

Addressing ethics in health and safety and in your supply chain

Ethics are a hot topic — and for good reason. Breaches of ethics can harm people’s livelihoods, quality of life, and health; they can increase the cost of goods to consumers while reducing financial prosperity for all; and they can damage reputations and close companies. Making matters worse, the ramifications can wash over the entire sector and can go far beyond the companies, industries, or employees involved.

From an investor’s perspective, companies that engage in unethical behavior are high risk, made even more so because the risk rises with each unethical decision. Fortunately, as a decision-maker, you can decide to go a different route. In this chapter, I show you how to set ...