At the core of a business organization should be a focus of maintaining ethical behaviors, which are the moral principles and values that individuals or organizations live and stand by. Your small business can be ethical by doing what society defines as what is just and fair. These acts include philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic responsibilities that should align with an organization’s practices. Companies should also engage in corporate social responsibility that demonstrates involvement and care for the community.

Bayer Corporation, which produces Yaz birth control, faced serious ethical issues. They allegedly engaged in false advertising where they stated that their birth control pills has a broad range of uses and that potentially serious side effects have been minimized. Both of these allegations were found to be false by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Because of this, Bayer had to spend an additional $20 million to fix their advertisements and be approved by the FDA before running them.

Here are some tips that your small business can follow:

• Don’t promise something you can’t deliver
• Ethical behavior starts at the top level of management…lead by example
• Establish a written code of ethics that can be followed

Unethical behavior can tarnish a company’s image and reputation. If a company is unethical, they may have to spend additional money to increase their reputation to an acceptable level.

Comments?

Note: The preceding post was written and researched by students in my Honors Marketing 351, Fall 2011 class, from the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics, Cal State Fullerton University, Fullerton California.  Many thanks to their time, talent, and contributions to both their career and this marketing blog.  Go Titans!