In Seth Godin’s blog post, “No such thing as business ethics”, the speaker suggests that business ethics is equivalent to doing right things in such a way that the business will maximize its long-term profit. He also states that business ethics does not actually exist and “only people can have ethics”. This is an interesting blog post because instead of thinking about the topic from a point of view that businesses are being business ethical for the good of society and environment, the speaker looks at the topic of business ethics from a more realistic, convincing perspective in which businesses are trying to maximize profit in short-term and long-term. From my analysis, I agree with the fact that business ethics is performed by corporation for the reason of generating more profit in forms, such as brand image, brand loyalty, or money. Since profit-maximizing is the only incentive for corporation to stay in business due to the fact that in order for corporation to stay competitive, they must be making significant profits as well, yet being able to use that profit to grow their corporation in a long-term period. As to whether business ethics actually exists, I believe that it only exists if the organizational culture of the company promotes such values and beliefs. In short, this blog post criticizes the existence of “business ethics” and the true reasons behind business ethical actions.

Reference:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/07/no-such-thing-as-business-ethics.html