The papers discuss the primary facets of communication and the essentiality of ethics in the corporate world. There will be an elaborate analysis of the repercussions of not complying with moral standards and the implications of ethics on a business. The paper will provide a personal reflection on the importance of ethical business communication and offer a crucial analysis of articles by multiple authors regarding issues facing organizations regarding ethics and communication. One of the solutions discussed to avoid ethical violations is ensuring that the managers and workers properly present information in their message.
Ethics and Communication
The lack of professional communication ethics results in confusion and deteriorated productivity and performance of a venture. Communication ethics is how individuals deploy language, journalism, and media and establish correlations guided by their values and morals. Various business communication methods include emails, letters, reviews, and notes, and they must be conveyed effectively to the workers to ensure staff members comprehend that the firm considers ethical practices. The company management must communicate ethically and establish high moral values. When communicating, a person should not use slang, jargon, and abbreviations but maintain professional dialects. Using undisciplined communication in business makes one irresponsible, unprofessional, and incompetent (Brooks & Dunn, 2020). A socially responsible company is more successful in the market than its competitors. Establishing a positive organizational culture with high ethical standards and offering subordinates training, work safety, and supporting their self-esteem results in an increment of the firm’s reputation. Establishing a code of conduct has positive impacts, including eliminating sexual harassment, discrimination, and conflict of interest, and helps create trust and credibility in the company.
Summary of News or Articles
Current news and events, such as social media rants, lack of respect, harassment, and discrimination, focus on business ethics in communication. The article by Brooks & Dunn (2020) studies the ethical behavior of business managers, who make ethical decisions as part of their leadership and management duties. Company leaders encounter moral issues and feel uncomfortable while making ethical choices. The study indicates that unethical behavior significantly impacts individuals in business units. The article by Fraustino & Kennedy (2018) showcases the essentiality of ethical strategic communication in reducing harm and safeguarding the public interests by ensuring employees remain truthful and responsible. The article by Jeffrey (2018) suggests that ethics is the foundation of communication. When people, including physicians, convey with their clients, they must observe their tone and verbal and non-verbal cues. The article by Joseph et al. (2022) shows the effect of ethics on venture communication, which results in increased employee job satisfaction. While communicating, harmful information must be eliminated from the message. The article by Mwikonji (2021) highlights the significance of ethics in facilitating organizational performance. The employer must ensure effective nonverbal and ethical dialogue when conversing with employees.
Impact of Ethics in Communication
In every business, all professionals must adhere to the set code of conduct, particularly when communicating with coworkers or customers. Notably, employees who only work to attain fame, status, and wealth do not acquire personal success. The moral principles observed while conversing with another person determine one’s attributes (Jeffrey, 2018). In communication, ethics helps prevent harm, such as deteriorating one’s self-esteem due to verbal assaults and promotes fairness. Ethics in the communication field is essential as it enables the escalation of trustworthiness among people, thus increasing their reputation (Joseph et al., 2022). The lack of screening information delivered to people can damage workers’ image and make clients purchase products from other firms. Ethical communication is vital for sustaining a strong culture of compliance in the workplace, particularly when making message delivery decisions.
The Relevance of the Content Toward Ethics and Communication
The organizational managers and employees must make effective decisions regarding the information conveyed to others. Maintaining an effective organizational culture ensures appropriate ethical practice and improved communication skills. Ethical communication bolsters a firm’s character and minimizes overall uncertainties, such as legal, financial, and reputational costs (Fraustino & Kennedy, 2018). Communication capabilities are essential for effective performance, career advancement, and organizational success as people maintain values such as honesty, respect, and trustworthiness, as they decide on what information to include in their message.
Consequences on the Organization
There are multiple repercussions of unintentional and planned ethical violations to an organization. Workers’ breach of the code of ethics and verbally harassing and discrimination against others may arise legal issues due to unfavorable behavior. The clients sue the organization in the civil courts due to their negligence associated with torts, which can result in payment of penalties and fines (Joseph et al., 2022). Under the directors’ and officers’ policies, the organization’s management can compensate individuals whose rights were violated. The workers can lose motivation, and the company’s stock price can drop drastically, resulting in deteriorated organizational performance.
Importance of Ethics in Business
In every venture, ethics plays a crucial role in the foundation of the organization’s vision, mission, and objectives and in making decisions associated with its expansion. Business ethics helps create solid relationships between managers, staff members, other firms, and customers due to the effective action of being trustworthy (Mwikonji, 20221). When the company’s management does not showcase forthright honesty and communication, the workers adopt such behaviors, which may damage the business’s reputation (Brooks & Dunn, 2020). Organizations must have written ethical policies and train how employees should relate with one another and clients. Ethics in business helps avoid ethical verbal communication issues, such as prejudice and discrimination, which are forbidden under federal laws and regulations.
Reflection
To a great extent, through this research about ethics and communication, I have learned that moral principles can be disintegrated into core values, which the workers and managers must embrace. The company’s management must practice ethical behaviors to avoid disagreements with subordinates and create an organizational culture that does not support ethical violations. Training workers to maintain transparency and honesty can make them avoid giving negative feedback to others, which involves unethical information in their message (Mwikonji, 20221). While making business decisions, people must be aware of what is wrong and right and be conscious of the consequences of their actions and professional responsibilities.
The Implication of the Lesson Learned
The current news, including harassment, social media rants, discrimination, and lack of respect, are examples of ethical implications for not effectively embracing communication principles when making decisions. The people must negotiate effectively by establishing what is right and wrong to avoid destroying relationships that may affect business performance and productivity due to the damage to reputation and payment of penalties and fines. The tone and verbal and nonverbal cues are crucial facets of communication (Jeffrey, 2018). All professionals must have the necessary communication skills to avoid ethical violations.
Conclusion
In every venture, ethics substantially impact verbal and non-verbal communication. However, to attain ethical business communication, the managers and the workers must maintain moral standards and be trained on the effects of violations, which include damaging organizational reputation, decreased stock share of the company, and payment of fines and penalties. Training workers to be trustworthy can make them avoid giving negative feedback to others, which involves unethical information in their message and making effective decisions. Maintaining ethical communication reduces the chances of ranting, prejudice, and harassment in the workplace.
References
Brooks, L. J., & Dunn, P. (2020). Business and professional ethics (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Fraustino, J. D., & Kennedy, A. K. (2018). Care in crisis: An applied model of care considerations for ethical strategic communication. The Journal of Public Interest Communications, 2(1), 18-18. Web.
Jeffrey, D. (2018). Patient-centered ethics and communication at the end of life (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Joseph, S., Jadhav, A., & Vispute, B. (2022). Role of ethical organizational culture on employee job satisfaction: an empirical study. International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 16(3), 337-354. Web.
Mwikonji, P. (2021). Role of ethics in promoting organization performance. Journal of Public Relations, 1(1), 29-39. Web.