It is in my belief that business ethics are the concepts and beliefs that are put into effect across all aspects of business that help to govern and dictate the conduct for individuals and whole organizations. The presence of these ethics can help to shape and build the company and/or individual applying them. A company with strong business ethics will in general have a higher employee moral, attract new customers, achieve a sense of loyalty with old customers and can have a positive impact on the community. This is far different then a company that may not have strong ethics as they would be scrutinized by the public, and could potentially lose much of their business and staff. Ethics truly revolves around all areas of business as it can be applied to a number of different areas like abiding by the law, protecting employees and rewarding customer loyalty.

One company who has come under negative fire in the past year for their ethics is British oil giant Soco International. This is because contractors and agents working for Soco International are alleged to have paid bribes to officials and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a bid to search for oil in Lake Edward in Virunga. This location is classified as a Unesco World Heritage Site and the company has come under fire by numerous environmental groups who fear they could bring harm to rare animals and the local fishing communities. Soco has denied all of these allegations but there is film evidence of supposed Soco employees offering bribes to various park officials and locals. I feel that these misconducts on behalf of the company have led to them having a tarnished reputation in the region and have placed a negative spotlight on the company.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/british-oil-giant-accused-of-bribery-in-tussle-over-africas-oldest-national-park-9710277.html