BUSINESS PROFESSORS TALK ETHICS; FIRMS THAT BUILD TRUST AVOID TROUBLES

O.C. Ferrell, professor of marketing and business ethics at Memphis State University, says the best way a businesses can avoid ethical quandaries is to develop the trust of its constituents, both employees and customers.

Ferrell, who has written college textbooks on the subject, was one of the speakers at a business ethics conference Friday at Southeast Missouri State University.

Faculty from Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee colleges and universities attended the conference, held at Cape Girardeau's Show Me Center.

Ferrell said business ethics is an important issue today, as opinion polls indicate the public believes ethical standards in business are on the decline.

"That may be a sign that's positive," Ferrell said, "because people are becoming more aware of the situation. I think business and educators have rolled up their sleeves and are dealing with these issues.

"Businesses are developing training programs to sensitize their employees on ethical issues now. The perception may be that things are worse, but maybe it's just because we're doing more about it now and people are thinking about it."

Ferrell said an increase in litigation could also have added to people's perception that business ethics aren't up to par. But he said there's more to ethics than the minimum standard of what is or isn't legal.

"Many people falsely equate business ethics with what's legal or not," he said. "They're really two very different issues.

"The legal system itself has difficulty determining if some things are legal or not. That's why we have litigation, to clarify some of the gray areas."

Ferrell said businesses should consider ethical implications of their actions that go beyond legal issues. "Why not set yourself up above the law and litigation and develop trust?" he said.

Ferrell said the best-managed businesses are those that maintain their employees' and customers' trust.

"That's a key to business ethics education," he added. "Business people need to keep in line with their constituents and what they expect in terms of basic behavior and in terms of developing trust.

"I equate ethics in business with developing trust."

Ferrell said he doesn't believe college business ethics courses should be a forum for "corporation bashing."

Rather than continually criticize companies for mistakes they might make, he said ethics education should instead prepare business students for the types of ethical problems they'll likely face in business and how to reasonably solve those problems as they arise.

"All businesses do make mistakes and will continue to do so, just as individuals make mistakes," Ferrell said.

"But we're on a journey to hopefully help people improve their reasoning and logic to help them work through the ethical problems they face daily. It's not to bash business or to tell them what to do in every situation.

"Our number one job is to sensitize people to what are the ethical issues they will face. There are probably more mistakes made because people simply don't realize they're dealing with ethical issues."

That's where developing trust between employers and employees comes into play, Ferrell said. He said employers must learn to deal with their workers through "inter-organizational" relations in a way that promotes and encourages trust.

Ferrell said that many times litigation is a direct result of a perception that companies are doing things that destroy employees' trust.

"That's one of the biggest general concerns of business ethics today," he said, "issues like discrimination in the workplace and fairness and equity in dealing with employees how you treat people."

But Ferrell said employers also need to realize that regardless of how fairly they treat workers, a percentage of employees are concerned only for themselves.

"In most organizations, regardless of the type of business it is, statistics show that 10 percent of the people tend to look after their own self-interests," he said.

"They'll do everything from at one extreme embezzle, to those who would steal paper clips. Business has to recognize this is inevitable, and they have to decide what approach to take."

Ferrell said the future of business ethics likely will be in the area of computers and other technology that will allow companies to glean an abundance of information about their potential customers. The ethical concerns are to what extent should businesses probe their customers' lives.

"There are many areas of business today in terms of technology that are unchartered territory," Ferrell said.

"It's possible that many businesses know more about your behavior than even you do. What should we be doing with that information?

"How much do you want business to know about you and your behavior? These are some of the new issues business will have to deal with."

Friday's conference was organized by faculty at Southeast Missouri State in response to a growing interest in adding ethics to business courses and research, Ferrell said. He said the conference included professors in philosophy, business law and economics, in addition to business.

The conference was sponsored by several local businesses including River Eagle Distributing, Southeast Missouri Pepsi-Cola, Houghton Mifflin Co., Dushkin Publishing Group Inc., and the Show Me Center.