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Business Leaders Management Consulting
We add business to your value
Ethical competitive advantage
Added value
It is interesting to observe how ethical insights are increasingly playing a key role in serious discussions on the economy. Whenever shareholder value is talked about as a corporate goal these days, it is always tinged with a note of caution. In the future, added value is set to mean not just profit but also social image, environmental activities, and meaningful employment.
It took a million years until a majority of people were persuaded that it was better for them to selflessly follow certain rules. It took us only 250 years to regulate our behavior on markets. So society is capable of adapting! If only we had used our common sense and consciences once in a while instead of blindly falling prey to various theories that lay claim to absolute truths, we would have known that selfish behavior is destined to destroy every social system if left unchecked.
Corporate culture was an initial attempt
Yet it is with this realization that the task begins. What does ethics mean for companies? How is ethical behavior good for business?
Ethical rules at company and organizational level are probably not much different than for individuals. However, companies are complex social systems, and laying down models to follow and calling for certain actions, however well meant, are not enough in themselves. Applying sanctions is not easy either. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible to imagine a kind of collective conscience. Reflecting on corporate culture and the purpose of companies and the search for a vision and mission that are designed to appear meaningful to a company’s own staff and customers is essentially nothing else but a search for this.
But even though we already know something of how such a functioning collective conscience can be created, the question remains as to what ethical behavior the company wishes to have in concrete terms and how this behavior can be maintained in the long run.
New business design for ethical competitive advantage
A company is not just a complex social system but also has an economic purpose to fulfill. There are good reasons why it has a structure, organization, processes, and principles. If you wish to introduce the ethical dimension into a company, you need to factor in the structure, organization, processes, and principles.
Companies will need a different business design in this century – a design that gives them a sense of purpose without sacrificing effectiveness. Indeed, effectiveness (that is to say, an increase in value, where value is understood as being more than just monetary value) basically needs to increase even faster, as growing global competition doesn’t plan on taking a break to give us time to deal with ethics!
Is this kind of business design possible? How can a company be organized in a way that allows all its values (including social, ethical, and environmental) to grow faster than those of its competitors?
But also what value system best helps my company justify its existence and how can it help us succeed in a competitive environment?
Business Leaders Management Consulting would like to work with you in the quest for answers to these questions.