A Publication of Lighthouse Consulting Services

As the Institute for Global Ethics develops its Corporate Services activities, executives everywhere ask us the big question: Can business really be ethical? What they’re asking is: How can I be sure that acting ethically won’t damage my bottom line? Can I make a real profit and still exhibit real ethics? We think they can. Here’s why.

In his book The Moral Sense, James Q. Wilson reflects on his decades of research into the criminal mind and raises a pithy question. "What most needed explanation," he writes about that experience, "was not why some people are criminals but why most people are not."

The question, in other words, is not, "Why do some people do bad things?" It is, "Why doesn't everyone?" Why don't most people opt for the immediate rewards of duplicity, fraud, and theft? Given a choice between the hard slog and the easy grab, why not go for the latter? Why abide by the constraints of a moral life when, as the old adage goes, the devil has all the good tunes?

One way or another, these are all forms of the age-old question lying at the heart of moral philosophy: Why be good? It's a question asked by small children eyeing the cookie-jar, truckers pressed for time on late-night trips, athletes who notice that the referee isn't looking, shoppers given too much change, and politicians wanting to line the pockets of their friends.

It's asked in modern corporate life as well. The culture of short-term rewards, the exigencies of the quarterly report, the pressure from unscrupulous managers, the glut of overseas competition—there are excuses aplenty for the moral shortcut, especially when the stakes are high and careers are on the line.

Can the case truly be made that, despite the apparent advantages of unethical activity, a corporation's bottom line will be significantly benefited by ethical standards and practices?

During years of public lectures and corporate presentations on ethics, I've fielded versions of that question by the score. Sometimes they come from executives who are already in a lather of enthusiasm, sold on ethics and only wanting more ammunition for their arguments. At other times they come from furrowed-browed cynics, keen to ferret out the logical flaw and prove that ethics is only for the naive. But most often they come from good people yearning to be convinced that ethics is congruent with a healthy bottom line.

To answer them, I find I talk a lot about shared values. Companies searching for effective ethics programs are increasingly moving beyond a compliance orientation and toward a values-based approach. What they're finding is that a consensus on a set of core, shared values—especially moral values—lays the basis for ethics programs that bring significant benefits to their organizations.

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