Maybe you are not familiar with this phrase “slippery slope effect”, but you must know this kind of phenomenon clearly: Once you get away from doing something bad, you would probably do something worse next time until you get caught.
Human beings are greedy. Once they are satisfied, they need more, like Madoff and Blair. However when the snowball gets bigger and bigger, it crashed eventually. So a strong sense of business ethics may help to curb a tiny bad thing getting worse.
As a manager, he has several basic responsibilities, like setting clear ethical policies in the company, keeping the employee reviewing them etc. By doing so, misconducts are restrained to some extent. What’s more? Employee themselves’ efforts do count. It’s unadvisable for them to do the ethical ambiguities in case they do something unethical before they realize it.
For individuals, they are supposed to behave themselves and resist outer temptations. External force from superiors is one part, but their self-urges are more important.
Then comes to a group in a company. If everyone is deeply aware of the business ethics, a highly disciplined atmosphere will form among colleagues. A good environment is more likely to keep all the people acting well until someone breaks the rule.
Most importantly, which is also highly recommended is never get close to the ethical boundary. Just as the old saying goes” No one can avoid his wet shoes if he always walk along the riverside.”
Reference list:
Bryan Borzykowski ,”The slippery slope of getting away with small stuff” 7 August.2014,9 Sept.2014
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140806-the-slippery-slope